Shadows
by my-echo
Summary: Updated at last! Days after the disastrous events at the Opera, Christine makes an impulsive, rash decision - but she is not entirely prepared for what will follow. Largely based on the world of the stage musical, sprinkled with Leroux. E/C.
1. Prologue

**A/N: This story has been gathering dust for a long, long time (something like three years), both in my brain and on my hard drive. I'm glad to finally let it see the light. **

**As to whom you should have in your mind's eye when reading this story, Erik is entirely Michael Crawford, with a dash of Leroux in his personality. Christine and Raoul are both composites—Christine (in my own mind) is a blend of several different stage Christines, mixed with a healthy dose of my own imagination, and Raoul is mostly Leroux, with a smidgeon of Steve Barton (the original London Raoul) thrown in. **

* * *

A time of bleakness had begun.

Sunny days were darkened by the gloom, and boredom was nefariously chipping away at her mind and soul.

Sometimes she caught herself staring at her hands. Pink finger, pink nail, white tip. Pink-pink-white.

_It needs more white_, she thought, and the idea was like a hiccup, a brief sigh. She had shocked herself with that weird, awful thought, but there was more.

She imagined lightly running fingertips across white skin, so white that it hardly seemed possible that there could be blood, feeling the bumps and curves. She imagined a mouth—_His_ mouth—open, his eyes closed.

_I could have Him in my power…_

Her eyes snapped open, appalled at her own perversity.

Deep brown met intense and puzzled baby-blue—he was staring, her beloved—and she nearly closed her lids again from sheer shame, the utter nothingness of lies.

_I lie to you every day, Raoul, because even I cannot entirely confront or embrace the awful, treacherous truth._

"Come, dear," he whispered, her rescuer. "Tell me what the matter is." Vaguely, she felt the soft, feather-light kiss upon her burning cheek, sending shivers up her spine, and guilty hatred in her heart. _I am a traitor to myself and to you. And you are blind._

She looked at him, and both wanted and did not want him. She could not have him. Never in the way they'd wished…not now, at any rate. There was his family, to begin with…and now always _Him_ hanging between them, like a burial-shroud.

In her mind, she rehearsed the things she wanted to say, planned them out like puzzle pieces on a slab of cherry-wood, soft pine blocks against a burgundy red. The pine, however, turned black in her imagination, black with fire, with burning. The charred pieces remained on the unscathed cherry, in her mind. They were broken testaments to a shattered dream.

_Raoul. _

_You and I are very different…_

_Raoul._

_I must talk to you about…_

_Raoul. _

_I cannot go through with…_

_Raoul. _

_I can't escape._

She squeezed her eyes shut, bursts of light erupting, one two three, pyrotechnics like the ones upon the Bal Masque night—_Fly into the air, bright ones, and flee before you burst into a flowered flame…_

_He won me after all._

"Christine…" Raoul whispered, and the breath inside her ear sent more of the same guilty shivers, which whispered in their turn of _lies lies lies,_ and in their structure held her greatest secret.

_Don't you see?  
_His sturdy hand lay upon her feminine fingers, leading her symbolically to hearth and home—but instead, she wanted the long-fingered hand that was oddly beautiful as it pounded upon the organ keys, taut and stretched in teaching lesson after lesson, waving in the air with elegance in front of a horrid skull with feathers…

_The Mort Rouge, Raoul. He is stalking abroad, still, in my mind._

"We'll be…"

_Can't you guess? Don't you know?_

The boy-turned-man's hands were sailor-hands…calloused in places, but smooth in most.

_Still clinging to your sisters' apron strings…you always were a child, Raoul. No. I was. SUCH a child! I thought I would be with you for ever. But then I saved you from your fate, and we fled, and I have been miserable ever since._

"…so happy…"

"…won't we…"

His voice seemed oddly disjointed, broken. Words sounded in her ears and faded out again, like waves against the jagged shore.

"…always…"

"…free…"

"…last…"

"…beaten…"

"…and my God, Christine…"

_Raoul, don't you understand?_

She could not say it aloud. She smiled, altogether beatifically, hating herself for this ongoing farce. She took his strong hand in hers, his sailor-hand, and kissed the tips of his fingers.

A tear threatened to spill from beneath her lids. She closed her eyes, turned her head away, pretending to be fascinated by the lilies on the end table.

"Do you not _feel_ happy?" he asked, his finger sliding down the smooth jawbone below her ear. Her flesh was the color of cream, she'd been told…smooth and perfect, blemishless, though it made her blush to think of it. Had _He _said it? She could not remember.

Did…did _He_ think her skin was creamy and perfect?

_Silly, silly, stupid goose. Stupid girl, idiotic woman, child…_what _am I, exactly? Child? Woman? Girl? Devil? Angel?_

But now the forbidden word had crossed her brain, and it was in complete revolt. She blanched, and snatched her hand away.

"I don't feel well."

Raoul stared. "What on earth has put you in such a fright?" he gasped. "You haven't…" And he looked out the window, as if fully expecting to see the personified apparition of her self-imposed Forbidden Word to appear at any moment. As if _He_ were what she had seen out the window. As if that were what had put her in a fright.

But it was, wasn't it, after a fashion? She'd seen him in her mind, at any rate.

"Raoul, I…" She grasped at straws for words. "I'm so frightened…I need…time…away_._ To think…about…things."

His face stiffened, softened, tightened around the eyes. She knew he was crushed. She could not come out with it, out with the real truth.

_I love you, dear, but I can't—I cannot love you the way you need to be loved. You are no true companion for me—not in that way. You never will be._

She could not say it. That would rip his heart out. And yet…had she not only just ripped out the heart of another only a few nights past? Without mercy, or quarter?

She remembered all too well giving back _His_ ring. She had meant it kindly—something to remember her by, as well as a plea to forget—but the full portent of that action had struck her the very next morning as if by a killing blow.

She _must_ say it.

"I…"

Raoul waited, his fingers laced so that they seemed to draw the blood from their veins.

Now_ they're white, but only now. A yellow-white, the white of death…the white of…_

She shuddered.

_Not quite._

His leg was bent sideways upon one knee, his entire body nearly sliding off the elegant divan. Tension rang true, and it never lied.

"I need to…" Her hands wrung painfully, fingers twisted even more than his now-bloodless phalanges. "I need time, Raoul. Time to think…"

"But you…promised…" he began, and cut himself off.

Raoul was too much of the gentleman to protest against her now, though if he thought she were in danger he would protest enough.

"Time to act. Time to be ready…" How empty the words sounded, how hollow. How utterly devoid of promise. And who _was_ that in the mirror opposite? Who was that elegantly clad female figure, who so recently had been dressed in dripping wet rags of a wedding dress?

_HIS wedding dress._

The thought gave her a shiver, an awful, creeping shiver, but something so despicably delicious in the horror of it all made her want to scream aloud with rage.

It was then she saw her chance.

She was the convict, the bird flying through the open window. She was the inmate about to be freed.

"Raoul, look at me. Look at me in the mirror."

He looked, against his will. "I see my bride."

"You see a peasant decked in trappings."

"'A jay in borrowed plumes?'" quoth he, raising an eyebrow.

Christine sighed. "You know _Jane Eyre_."

"You've read it, then?" he asked.

"Oh, Raoul," she sighed. "So little you know about me. So many things you never thought to ask."

"It's that, then," he said. "It's time to get to know you, time to get to know me."

"No, Raoul," she said. "Time to get to know ourselves."

There was a pregnant pause, a slight but ever-so-perceptible stitch in the fabric of the day, and then a sigh. "So it has come to this," he whispered. "You do not wish to marry me, do you, Christine?"

She blanched. "I…"

Could she make the plunge?

Could she say a heartfelt _No_…or _Yes_? Which must it be?

"That," she said softly, "is why I must have time. To think it over. You see, Raoul…"

He sighed again. "All of Paris watches," he whispers. "All judgmental eyes. Do you not want to get away from it all, to go to the coast and plunder it like pirates, or live in the jungles like natives?"

She laughed out loud…she could not help it. Such delightful things he said, oftimes—

Bittersweetness turned the laugh into a hiccup. He patted her back instinctively. She coughed a bit from the over-firmness of the pat. He didn't know his own strength, her Sailor Lad.

"Give…" she coughed again. "…me time."

His hand was still in midair, paused in indecision as he thought, muscles not transferring the signal to pull it back from its over-zealous mission of curing her of the hiccups.

It dropped. Decision made.

Her eyes would not leave the blond downy-fur on his upper lip, the fine tracing hairs that caressed the indent, the tender soft-scratchiness.

They nuzzled against her ear, his lips brushing chastely but hotly across her cheek, the mind-whisper coming, so soft, so understanding, _Oh, I love you, Raoul, how could I not, as such a dear devoted friend? But nothing more…_

_Quoth the raven, _she almost said aloud, on a strange and wicked impulse, but caught herself in time.

"Time I'll give you," he whispered. "Always. Infinite. If only you are happy."

This time a tear did drip down her cheek, and her mind finished what it had begun.

…_Nevermore._

* * *

**A/N: This prologue and a good deal of the first chapter were written, as I said, quite a while back, so the writing style (in the prologue, mainly—not so much in the first chapter) at first varied drastically—and even still differs quite a bit—from the one I have now. I made a lot of revisions to this before posting it, to make it a bit more consistent with the following chapters, and especially to make it less distractingly florid. Christine came off as more than a little crazy in the original prologue, and while I **_**was**_** going to go along those lines, it ended up just not working. I subsequently wrote her as being far more in possession of her faculties—even though she still seems just a little out of it at first. **

**I say this mainly because I posted the original prologue on a website or two, a few years ago, when I was testing the waters for the story, and if anyone who happened across it then happens across this now and wonders at the changes, this is why. **


	2. Chapter I: Descent

Back she went to the place which so recently had been her nightmare-abode. She disembarked from the carriage carefully, shading her face with a hat, her hair bound up into a bun, and wearing plain, ordinary clothes.

Mercifully, no one outside in the streets seemed to recognize her. She could scarcely believe it after all the goings-on of a few nights before, but she was grateful that her simple effort at partially disguising herself seemed to be working amazingly well. It was likely her hair, she decided…rather astonishing, the simple effects of changing one's hairstyle could create in one's appearance. People were used to seeing her dark locks curling and cascading in a slightly unruly fashion down her back, and she supposed the hat worked wonders as well to further her disguise.

She tiptoed deftly into the Opera, her shoes making a dull thudding sound upon the polished marble floors. Oh, she would give all she possessed to not be seen by the management, or anyone from the chorus, or the ballet corps, or…

A hand grasped her shoulder.

She sucked in her breath, trembling.

Turned around timidly. "Y…yes?" she whispered, and then nearly sank to the floor in relief. It was Meg.

Meg, who would never tell.

"Christine," she whispered. "Chr…" She looked about her, then hurriedly steered her fellow artist into a shadowed corner, where it would be difficult to see either of their faces. "Where have you been?" she demanded, her voice almost a sob.

"I have been staying at the house of one of Raoul's aunts, just outside the city," whispered Christine. "I know it's been four days…I'm so dreadfully sorry I sent you no word of me. I meant to…I really did…but—"

"Oh, it doesn't matter now," gasped Meg, apparently trying very hard to keep her composure. "Oh, I'm so glad that you're back…I…I wondered if you were dead…and I…I went there…with them…that night—and I found…_this_."

The thing she placed in Christine's shaking hands made her vision blur, darken. She felt as though she were fainting.

"Oh, God," she said aloud, and put a hand to her forehead.

Feeling the cool, smooth porcelain in her palm abruptly brought back a disturbingly erotic shadow-memory of a long white hand about her waist, fingers ginger but strong. Her own hand was burning feverishly, sliding up that self-same porcelain as she leaned against him most indecently, her head flopping backwards on his chest, curls spilling against the white of his cravat…

She shuddered. When had _that_ ever happened?

Had it been…had it been the night when he had taken her down, that very first encounter between them face-to-face? She remembered barely anything from that experience; indeed, it was as though she had been in some sort of deep trance.

_I do not doubt it,_ she thought suddenly, with a sort of angry jolt. _So afraid, he could not reveal himself to me in my waking lucidity. He had to be in power. Always, in power._

"Why could he not simply have introduced himself to me, as normal men do?" she found herself saying aloud, but the idea stopped in its tracks. He had never been a normal man—at least, not in all the time she had known him—and she had hardly known him at all, when one took into account the minimalism and infrequency of their honest-to-goodness, face-to-face encounters. Perhaps, she thought, he had been trying for so long to be normal and failed that he had simply given up on any semblance of normalcy that he ever might have possessed.

The cold smoothness in her hands was making her feel dizzy, almost bewitched.

"Meg," she whispered. "Did you…did you see _him_? Anywhere?"

"N…no," shuddered Meg. "God, Christine, if I had, I would have been so startled and afraid that I likely would have given him up to the gendarmes almost at once. They never found him. It was as though he had vanished into thin air…"

Christine felt crushing, bittersweet relief, mixed with dread.

She grasped Meg's hand, feeling her soul quiver and grow cold. Thinking of him always made her feel cold.

A sudden thought came to her, then, very much connected to the shadow-memory of before. Was it possible that…

No. She would have known. There would have been some sign…there would have been, she was sure, soreness or discomfort in that place when she awoke, or spots of blood on the sheets…something. Whatever hypnosis she had been under that night he had first taken her down to his dark abode, she had been entirely lucid the next morning. Of course she had still been dizzy, but she had been aware. She would have known.

As far as she knew, he had left her entirely alone, save for that strange intimacy during his hypnotic musical caress.

Was the source of his power possibly in his voice alone?

She shivered. It was not merely that, she was sure. It was in the way he moved, the way his eyes looked beneath half-closed lids, peering out, fluttering, burning. Merely thinking of it made something in her breast quiver and shrink. She felt frail all of a sudden, weak.

"Christine," said Meg in a low, frightened voice. "Are you quite all right?"

Christine's hand fluttered to her forehead, feeling a cold sweat come away upon her fingertips. "I don't really know," she whispered. "I don't know whether I shall ever be all right again."

Meg shuddered. "Christine," she said, her voice trembling, "did…did _he…_" Her eyes were wide, her face white, her mouth open and flapping wordlessly in a nameless horror.

Christine shook her head, feeling a hot flush creep up her cheeks. "No, no," she said quickly, nearly stammering. "He…" She felt foolish, saying it. "He let me go. With Raoul."

"With Raoul?" Meg gasped. "The Vicomte followed you after all, then? And…"

"Very nearly got himself killed," Christine moaned, holding a hand to her eyes, trying to blot out the memory, the memory of those burning eyes as _He_ spat out an ultimatum, while her would-be lover hung from a rope. "I don't…I don't know what…"

…_What possessed me._

She didn't finish her sentence. Somehow she could not tell Meg about The Kiss. It was something deeply visceral, somewhat intimate, almost embarrassing. She couldn't get the words out. Telling Meg about The Kiss would be something akin to telling a stranger on the street about one's wedding night. It did not matter that Meg was perhaps the closest thing she had ever had to a real confidante. She simply could not reveal it, not here, not now.

She almost didn't like to think of it as a kiss. It was more of a desperate act, like a child groping helplessly in the dark for the corner of a table, the outline of a chair.

His lips had tasted of salt, of grime and the barest bit of blood. There had been something else, too, something stale on his breath, as though he had not eaten in days…

Christine closed her eyes and shuddered.

His great, shuddering breaths…the wetness on his face, beneath her hand. Her fingers had been coated with it, with his tears and with some other unidentifiable substance, likely lake residue of some kind…

They had all been dirty, when it was over. Water had splashed everywhere, Raoul's shirt had been covered in grime and muck from his sojourn through the sewers…the tattered remains of her wedding dress had been nearly unrecognizable when finally he and she had emerged from the dark depths, soiled and streaked with slime and water-stains, torn and disheveled.

"Christine," Meg whispered, insistent, demanding, her fingers grasping Christine's sleeve so tightly that they appeared bloodless. "_What happened?_"

Christine's eyes opened, swiveled around to meet Meg's. "Someday I will tell you," she said softly. "When it is behind me. But not now. Not now…"

Then, for pity's sake, she grasped her friend's hand. "It was nothing terrible," she said, almost as though she were trying to convince herself. "Nothing awful…it was simply…"

"What?" queried Meg, her eyes rapt. She had always been fascinated with _Him_, Christine remembered suddenly, had been since her girlhood. Every tale, every wagging tongue that happened to mention the word _Fant__ô__me _had captured Meg's attention like trumpets ringing out from the rooftops. Even if she were in the midst of eating something, the morsel would halt inches from her lips, held suspended in her hand, and her gaze would become slack, staring. "What's that you said?" she would demand suddenly, leaning forward with bright, keenly interested eyes. "What did you say about the Ghost?" Always, always little Meg poking about after the Opera Ghost. It was a wonder he'd not carried _her_ off, she'd been so interested in him…

Christine fought off the urge to snort derisively. It wasn't that she held herself in a higher position than Meg, it was simply the miserable absurdity of the whole situation, of having been carried off in the first place, when nothing might have been nearly so disastrous had he chosen Meg instead—she might have relished it, even. Who knew why anything had happened the way it had?

Meg's mouth slid into a miserable frown. "I shall never know, shall I?" she muttered. "Never…"

"Someday," Christine said, rather half-heartedly. "Oh, Meg, I don't know what I shall do now. Raoul and I have broken off our engagement, and I feel…"

"But why? Was it because—"

"I told him that I needed time," she said hollowly. "Meg, I'm not certain I…oh, I don't wish to talk about it now. There's something I need to do. Promise—" She caught hold of Meg's shoulders, grasped them firmly. "Promise you won't tell anyone I'm here. You wouldn't, would you?"

"Not if…not if you don't want me to. Oh, Christine, you're beginning to frighten me. Why _have _you come back, if you didn't want anyone to know?"

"I need…I need to do something," she said. "I need to find someone."

"Him?" Meg whispered.

"Meg, you can't tell a soul. There's something I _must_ tell him, something I…"

"But I thought you were scared to death of him, that you never wanted to see him. You told me but a week ago how frightened you were—"

"Meg, don't press me," Christine moaned. "Oh, don't press me, please. I can't even explain it to myself. You won't tell—will you? He won't hurt me. I know he won't. You don't need to be worried. I doubt that I will even be able to find him, if he really vanished as you say. I simply need to try. Can you understand it? Can you swear to keep your silence?"

"Yes," Meg whispered. "If you really require it of me."

"Not even your mother, Meg. Not even her. Swear it."

"I swear," whispered Meg. "I swear not to tell a soul."

"Thank you," said Christine, and gave Meg a swift kiss on the cheek. "You _are_ a dear, Meg." With that, she ran swiftly down the hall to the old dressing-room, praying she would be able to work the mechanism of the mirror.

Nobody saw her as she slipped into the dressing-room. After quickly lighting one of the candles in the sconces, she closed the door quietly behind her.

She remembered with humiliation how she had thought at first that he had been magic. It was Madame Giry who had told her there must be a hidden spring or lever, after Christine had spoken of what she could remember of her strange journey. She had never searched for the spring herself, nor told anyone that it existed. And _He_ had certainly never mentioned how it worked.

The mirror was cold and dark. She felt a little shiver up her back as she stared it in the face. Was it possible he was behind it even at this very moment? No, of course not, for what reason would he have to be here now? How could he possibly know she was here, unless…

Now the shiver was colder, and longer. He might have been watching her, all this time. He might have been following her, without her knowledge. He might even have been listening when she and Raoul suspended their engagement. Would he have risked such a thing, with the police crawling all over the city like cockroaches, looking for him? It wasn't as though he blended into the crowd with any measure of ease, although she supposed if he wished he might be able to disguise himself enough. She had witnessed a few of his abilities which might have convinced even the most skeptical of souls that he was a veritable wizard.

Cautiously, like one who walks in a dream, she approached the mirror and held out her hand. "Are you there?" she whispered. "Are you?"

There was no reply. Suddenly Christine felt desperately foolish. _And it's a fool's-errand I'm on, that's for certain. _

Her fingers searched up and down the wall, looking for a crack, a protrusion. She found nothing on the left side of the wall. It was altogether possible that there was no mechanism on this side of the mirror at all—that it could only be operated behind the mirror, in the tunnel, rather than in the dressing-room.

On the right side of the wall, however, she thought she saw something strange near the very top of the mirror—it was too high for her to reach, but a man of _His_ height could have reached it easily.

Dragging a stool over to the mirror, she stood atop it, steadying herself against the wall when the legs began to wobble and creak. She closed her eyes for a moment. _Please, oh, please._

She fumbled at it with her fingers, first pulling, then pressing. As she pressed, she felt it give way, and she nearly fell from the stool in surprise and alarmed, giddy excitement. The mirror swung open, revealing a black, empty tunnel, wet and dripping.

Fighting down a lump of fear, Christine stood before it for a moment. "Angel?" she whispered. The breath choked in her throat. "Phantom?"

She could not traverse that dripping darkness alone. She could not. She should never have attempted to find him this way.

It was foolish, and yet she could think of no other way. She plunged blindly into the blackness, and the door swung shut behind her.

With a scream, she tried to find something to open it again, repenting fervently of her idiotic impulse, but she could find nothing but wet, slimy rock. She put her hands against the mirror. There was nothing to break the glass with; perhaps if she screamed loudly enough, someone would come—

And then what? They would ask questions, perhaps even think she was in league with _Him. _She would be arrested, hung…

Oh, God. Was the shame and anguish worth it? Could she not attempt to find him, after all? How difficult could it be, really—

She knew too well how difficult it would be. There was no reason on earth he would have made the journey to his underground domain easy for anyone, even for her.

After a few more despairing moments of searching for the hidden spring, she gave up and descended blindly into the passage, groping with her hands. There was no light from the dressing-room to illuminate the passage. The candle had burnt out, and it would not have given off sufficient light anyway.

"Oh," she groaned, "oh, if you're here, please, _please_…"

Her voice echoed eerily around her, mocking her cruelly.

"Phantom!" she screamed desperately. She did not even think she could find her way back to the dressing-room. It was pitch-dark, blacker even than a night with a new moon.

The word echoed around her, a horrid, piercing shriek.

_Phantom! Phantom! Phantom!_

After what seemed to be an hour of groping blindly, Christine sank to her knees in despair, feeling suffocated. He was gone; he would never find her, and she would die of starvation in these black tunnels, lost and alone.

The floor came up to greet her, and she knew nothing for a long time.

* * *

Firelight, flickering and red against her eyelids. Was the Opera burning? Was she to be trapped in a blazing, hot grave?

She sat up with a start, and then her heart went into her mouth. "God," she whispered, and sank back down again.

There was a long, strange silence, while her blood throbbed and thundered. All around her was blackness. Nothing else.

She got to her feet, began groping again, in the direction she thought was down.

_Lost, lost. Never find me, never find him, lost. Gone. Maybe dead. Why was I such a fool?_

Something gave way beneath her feet, and only by grasping tightly to an outcropping did she keep from falling to her death—and only marginally so. She heard stones tumbling below her, splashing into the water, and then, with a great creaking groan, the thing that had given way closed ponderously again. Her fingers were slipping. She felt gingerly with her shoes for the edge. There was a small crack where trap-door ended and floor began. She gasped when she stood upon it, gasped with a great, shaky relief, so great that she began to laugh, and laugh.

She laughed so hard that she sank into a heap, and then she began to sob. After a few moments, she began to scream again, so loud her throat was beginning to go hoarse. She was close to fainting when she saw the firelight again, glimmering some distance away. After a moment, it disappeared, and the strength sank from her limbs, seeming to leach her very life itself. She really did faint, then--"Phantom" being the last brief murmur on her lips before she succumbed to unconsciousness.

* * *

There was something soft beside her. Something warm. Was she dreaming again? Was it a rat, perhaps?

She screamed, struggling, but something held her tightly, something not warm at all, but cold as ice. She could not tell what it was, or if she was in the grip of some waking nightmare, or if she was dying. She felt herself floating—no, hanging—over something hard, swaying back and forth. It came to her slowly that she was being carried, like a sack of potatoes, flung over someone's shoulder, and a sweet relief, mixed with a coppery fear, swam slowly through her veins. Perhaps she was merely dreaming again…she could not tell. A feeling of nausea overcame her, and she slipped back into the grip of insensibility.

* * *

A cold cloth was being pressed to her face. "Wake up," she heard someone muttering, "Wake up," and then she realized that it was _His_ voice, but that was impossible. She had dreamed the whole thing, no doubt, and was even at this very moment sitting in her flat with—

She opened her eyes.

The face floating before her drew back, as though afraid to alarm her. She might have gasped, but instead, she sat up slowly without a sound. Vaguely she noticed that she had been lying on a little bed of worn, slightly moth-eaten cushions, covered with an embroidered burgundy blanket that had once been elegant but was now looking decidedly the worse for wear. A few candles gave off a dull sort of light. Altogether, this was a far less splendid cavern than the one he had dwelt in previously. _Before I ruined everything,_ she thought, and then felt a hot, awkward blush come up in her face. He had forced her into it, after all, "ruining everything"—he had given her little choice, and everyone else had left her even less.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked.

He stared at her, his gaze broiling with emotion. Anger, that she could identify, and pain, and perhaps a hint of the old passion. She shivered.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

His large, misshapen lips twitched, and then he looked away.

"Why?" he asked at last, his voice silken and trembling. "Why did you come? What utter foolishness possessed you to traverse that dark passage with no light and no idea of whence you went?"

"Don't ask me," she whispered. "I don't know."

He closed his eyes.

This was far more uncomfortable than she had imagined. She struggled desperately for something to say, something to break the silence. An awkward, straining tension seemed to fairly permeate the air.

"He and I are no longer engaged," she blurted on impulse, not daring to say her formerly betrothed's name aloud, and his eyes slid over very slowly to meet hers. There was a curious expression in them—he regarded her coolly, but she also thought she detected a trace of triumph, and of sudden, violent eagerness, carefully contained.

"It was silly, really—to have gone through all that, only to find that all he could have offered me wasn't what I wanted," she said, and then felt stupid, to have said such a thing. It made her sound petty.

"Is that why you came?" he asked hoarsely.

An eternity of silence.

"I told you," she whispered, "I don't know why I came."

He snarled in his throat and threw the washcloth to the side of him, where it made a soft _splat_ on the floor. He stood up and turned his back to her.

The hems and legs of his trousers were grimy, caked with day-old dirt and slime. There was a grey-brown crust upon his once fine-looking coat. She felt another little rush of shame, for having brought all this upon him.

"You know," he said softly, "I shan't let you go this time. It was in an extraordinarily weak frame of mind that I did so in the first place."

"Yes," she whispered. "I know."

"Then why did you come?" he cried out. He swept around to face her, his long white hands held out, palm-up, in a strange supplication. "Why did you not get away?" he groaned. "Why did you not remove yourself from me as far as possible?"

She had no answer for him.

He collapsed to his knees and put his hands over his eyes. "God," he whispered. "I really have driven you mad, after all. To think, if I had left you alone…"

"Do you still want me?" she asked in a trembling voice, so quiet she herself could barely hear her own words. She wished heartily that she had not said it. His hands dropped from his face. He stared at her, his gaze vaguely beastlike.

"Want you," he said hollowly. "Do I want you?" He came toward her on his hands and knees, covering the short distance between them. "Do I want you?" he asked again. There was something incredulous in his voice, and something intrinsically predatory, ravenous.

She shuddered, and leaned back a little as his face loomed over hers. His lips, twisted and swollen monstrously out of shape, hovered a breath away from her cheek. "Want you," he said again, a musing repetition of her words. His voice was a languid, throaty caress. She closed her eyes. She hoped he would not kiss her, and then again, she hoped that he would.

"Christine Daaé," he said, almost mockingly, and there was a melodious, drawling sing-song in his voice when he said her name. It slid along his tongue, coating it like honey. She half-thought she was going to faint.

Her hands came up, fingers curling around his shirt. Hardly knowing what she did, she drew a little closer to him, and she heard him give a long, shuddering sigh. His misshapen mouth, hot and quivering, brushed wetly against her neck. "Oh, you've come back," he gasped. "You've really come back to me. I'm not dreaming. I'm not." This last was said in something like a moan.

She could think of nothing to say. It was, ironically, very much like a strange dream. She felt vaguely as though she were outside herself. _Feeling all but experiencing nothing_, she thought wildly_. _Would that make this weird, illicit reunion any less of a sin or a crime?

"In dreams, you came back," he whispered, "but this now is certainly no ghost of fantasy, haunting me, torturing me. Time and again I would wake to find you gone, a wisp of memory, my limbs cold. But now you will not leave. You'll stay with me, I'll make sure of it. You shan't go again."

His hands were on her waist very firmly, almost enough to hurt. She was frightened, and dizzy.

"I must look a sight," he said suddenly, "covered in muck, and…" He abruptly turned his face away, so that she could see only the left side, that which had escaped his mother's womb relatively unblemished. She lifted her fingers, ran them along his cheek. There was, as there had been days ago when this had all come crashing upon their heads, a surge of pity in her heart, and of compassion. She traced the deep line around his mouth, a line caused not by a freak accident of nature, but by long, weary years. His lips parted a little, and his eyelids fluttered half-closed. His eyes glimmered hotly beneath them, smoldering embers that gave her heart a kind of panicked little thrill.

"Why did you come?" he whispered for what seemed the thousandth time. "Why did you not get away?"

She closed her eyes again, and felt the tips of his fingers cupping her jaw, the heat of his mouth hovering close to her cheek. "Foolish child," he murmured. "Foolish, beautiful child."

"I'm not a child any longer," she said abruptly, turning herself away from him. "I haven't been for some time. One would think you had noticed, or you would not have been so eager to abscond with me." She was a little shocked at herself for saying this.

"Do you hate me?" he asked quietly, a strange, resigned curiosity in his voice.

"No," she said.

There was silence for a moment.

"Sometimes," she amended.

"When you do not hate me," he asked, "what emotion _does_ reside in your breast?" His long, cool fingers slid over her hair. He was trying to make her look at him, she thought, but she did not turn.

"I don't know," she said, feeling stupid. She _did_ know, but she could not say it.

He took her arm in his hand, jerked her around to face him. She gasped a little from the suddenness of it, the near-pain in her arm.

"You risked life and limb to traverse the moldering tunnels of my domain," he said evenly, "nearly broke your idiotic female neck in one of my trap-doors…swooned into a dead faint from fright and confusion…" His fingers tightened on her arm, and she winced. "Don't," she whispered. He let go of her at once.

"Either you really are mad," he said, "so mad you lost yourself in the tunnels for no clear purpose—or…" He did not continue the _or._ There were, Christine thought, privately, too many _or_s.

"I am afraid," she whispered, "afraid to tell you why I came."

"Afraid?" he asked dully. That was surely nothing new to him. Inspiring fear in others had seemed to be his calling-card.

"Yes."

"Afraid," he said between his teeth, "of what?"

"Being—" Christine choked a little on her words. "Being consumed," she said with difficulty. "Consumed utterly." _Body, soul, and mind,_ her thoughts whispered, but she could not manage to say them aloud.

His eyes flickered.

"Consumed?" he asked vaguely. "How interesting."

There was a long silence.

"You know," he said, as though they were speaking of something as ordinary as the weather or politics, "I have just remembered...you do not even know my name."

"What?" she asked in surprise.

"I never told you," he said again, more deliberately this time, "my name." His voice was soft, perhaps even a little malicious.

"I didn't think—" She broke off. It seemed impossibly ignorant and rude, suddenly, to say _I didn't think you had one._

"No," she said awkwardly. "No. You never told me." Something as commonplace as learning a man's name seemed strangely incongruous with this meeting, almost incompatible. She had not quite expected it.

"You thought I had none?" he inquired blandly, and she flinched.

"A good many animals don't have names," he said, his expression unreadable. "All men, however, usually have one, some self-appointed, or some picked up along the road of life, if not given by parents or relatives at their birth." She felt too ashamed to look at him then.

"My mother, it seems, did see fit to give me a name, along with the scrap of cloth which made up my mask," he said coolly. "God knows why I kept it—the name, I mean."

"What is it?" she asked sheepishly.

"Erik," he said flatly. He stood up.

It was a curious thing, but attaching an honest-to-goodness name to the man somehow made him ten times less mysterious, and thereby far less intimidating. He was only a man—really only a man, with a normal name, one that sounded Swedish, no less. He was no supernatural ghoul residing in a man's body. She was a little ashamed to realize that this was more or less the way she had been thinking of him, without knowing it.

"Oh," she said. Her voice sounded dull and stupid in her ears.

"Tell me why you are here," he said.

"I'm here," she whispered, "because—" She struggled for a moment. "I wanted to make sure you weren't dead," she said, "and I had this mad, mad need to see you again. It was impossible. I had to."

"Why?" he asked. "You seemed willing enough to leave with your lover five nights past."

Her cheeks flamed. "I was frightened," she said. "I was angry. Part of me wanted to stay—" She couldn't continue. She was certain she would cry if she did, and Lord knew she did not want to cry.

Even through a massive effort to keep it back, one tear slid down her cheek, having slipped slyly past the guards of her eyelids. She made no effort to swipe it away.

He looked at her curiously, a strange expression on his face.

"I had to go, that night," she said. "I had to. They would have hunted us down to the ends of the earth if Raoul had made it known that I had fled with you. Now people might suspect, but they will never know." _Not even Meg will know for certain._

"That wasn't why you left," he said.

"No," she said. "It wasn't. I couldn't bear to stay. I thought I wanted him more than I wanted you. And then, yesterday, I discovered—I realized—I had been desperately wrong." She could have bitten her tongue off.

He was standing stiffly. His face seemed a little frozen.

"I didn't think to find you," she said. "I wanted to—part of me wanted to—but I didn't expect it. I was shocked when I did."

"_You_ did not find _me_," he said. "_I_ found _you_."

"Yes," she said. "Thank you." The last words were said shyly.

"I heard someone scream," he said. "I went to investigate. Imagine my surprise when I saw, lying on the floor in a miserable heap, one whom I had thought never to see again."

"Were you—were you glad to see me?" she asked timidly, and then felt stupid.

"No," he said. "Surprised, yes. Concerned, perhaps. But glad? No."

Christine felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach.

"I didn't trust myself enough to be glad," he said shortly, and she felt a little better.

There was another long silence. "Even now," he said, more softly, "I am not quite sure of what to think. What to do—that, in itself, poses a far larger conundrum." His eyes fixed on her, still hooded, and there was a kind of flickering longing in them.

She wanted to say his name, but it stuck in her throat. It seemed too strange.

His fingers flexed spasmodically. There was a jellied silence in the air, one in which she seemed suspended, unable to escape.

"Where will we go?" she whispered. He took a deep breath, threw up his hands. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know. I'll think…I'll think, of how…and where—" He turned away, shuddering a little. "To hear you say those words," he breathed, leaning his head against the stone wall. "You really mean to stay, then. You really mean—"

"You said you would not let me go," she said dryly.

"No," he said. "Not that. You said, 'Where will we go?' Implying willingness, a readiness to follow me where I lead. It—I don't know what to think of it. It seems too fantastic, too frightfully surreal."

"Do you think me so churlish as that?" she whispered. "To find you, tell you these things…and then try to escape? If I wanted to be rid of you, I should never have tried to find you." It was true, in a way, but the words she spoke did not entirely reflect her true feelings. Part of her wanted to be away from him, as far away as she could run. Even so, she was surprised to realize that the larger part of her, the much larger part, wished desperately to remain.

He took two long steps, and lifted her to her feet. His hands slid slowly from her arms, trembling a little. "Christine," he said haltingly, fingers hovering over her face. "Christine—"

Her own affirmation, both mental and verbal, that she did not have any wish to escape from his grasp made her feel strangely empowered. Still, she felt painfully shy. She touched his face again, slowly, timidly, and his eyelids fluttered closed. An eternity passed before—heaven knew why—she pressed a quivering kiss to his lips on a mad impulse, and his body shook like a tree in the wind. The kiss deepened, became more probing and desperate. His arms were akimbo again, as they had been during that first, strange kiss days before—he didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. Finally his fingers gathered awkwardly in her hair, which had long since come free from its confines during her sojourn in the tunnels.

After what seemed an eternity, she could breathe again. Her lips tingled, throbbed. She looked into his eyes for a long moment, feeling his chest rise and fall heavily beneath her hands.

"Angel?" she whispered, unthinkingly reverting to the old name.

"Erik," he said hoarsely, and leaned forward a little timidly, as though to claim her lips again. He stopped, seeming to lack the daring. She met his mouth halfway, and they kissed clumsily, awkwardly.

"Erik," she amended uncomfortably, after the kiss had been broken. He shivered. "Say it again," he murmured.

"Erik," she whispered, "Erik," and this time his mouth fumbled on hers. She felt an overwhelming sense of panic, and an awful, strange need. Raoul had kissed her a little like this once, in a dimly lit stairwell, but despite a lurking passion, there had always been something more controlled about Raoul, perhaps because of the way he had been brought up. Their brief, mostly innocent love affair had been exciting at first, mainly because it was new, because it was unfamiliar.

There had never been this sense of urgency, of desperation, and she had never imagined that those very things could be so shockingly sensuous. Raoul had never groaned out her name like a prayer, or shivered under her lips. There was something utterly delicious about the way _He—Erik,_ she reminded herself—reacted to something so simple as her hand on his cheek, her mouth against his. It was strangely gratifying, and gave her a weird little thrill.

He broke away, his breath coming in gasps. "It cannot," he said hoarsely, "be merely pity…"

She shook her head wordlessly.

"Do you love me," he asked, his fingers just barely brushing against her face, "even a little?" There was a breath of hope trembling in his voice, a kind of quiet plea.

She flinched. "Perhaps," she whispered. "After all, you told me once…" She paused.

"What?" he queried, though she suspected that he knew quite well what he had told her, and merely wanted to hear it from her own lips.

"Fear," she said, "can turn to…" She broke off. The word "love" lodged in her throat, digging in its heels. Christine took his hands in hers and gently removed them from her face. She backed away a little.

"I don't know what to think," she said. "Can I love a murderer?"

"You might try," he said. She felt a little faint, looking into his eyes. They seemed to see her very soul, all her thoughts laid bare for his discernment.

"Love me," he whispered, his hands extended beseechingly.

"If I do," she said, "will I be damned?"

"None of us will know until judgment-day," he said.

There was a long silence.

_Wildly my mind beats against you—_

She reached out trembling hands, and he wrapped his long fingers around them.

_But the soul obeys._


	3. Chapter II: Flight

His hands were on her face, fingers tracing her cheekbones and her hairline none too gently. They were no longer cold, his hands, but very warm.

"I was stupid to leave," she gasped, trying to remain calm, although his dreadful, twisted skin, with the gleaming red muscle showing through its pleats—and that horrid, huge, pumping cyst on the side of his head—were almost more than she could bear up close. She didn't mind it, really—it was only that it was so near, as though it were being forced upon her yet again. "Stupid to give you my ring, only I was so angry about what you had done, and so weary, and R—he was half-dead, and I couldn't bear it."

"You nearly killed me," he said between his teeth. "When I thought you had come back to me—to stay—but you merely dropped your ring in my hands and pulled yourself away from my pleas, with hardly a backward glance."

"I heard you calling after me," she whispered. "I didn't dare look back. So burned was it into my memory that I heard you calling every night in my dreams."

"I tasted your lips in mine," he murmured, and she felt her face flush scarlet.

He drew back a little, his hand absently smoothing back the pitiful, greyed remnants of his hair. He suddenly seemed to remember he was no longer wearing a wig, or a mask for that matter, and his expression changed. He seemed far more uncomfortable. Exposed.

"What do you mean to do?" she asked. He sank into a small couch that she recognized from the old grotto. She wanted to ask him how it—and how _he_, for that matter—came to be here, but didn't dare. It seemed too ordinary, too familiar. Besides, to bring up how he came to be here would naturally bring up more…uncomfortable conversation.

"Go," he said in response to her question, "far away from here. Perhaps not entirely out of France, for no doubt I might have a difficult time leaving the country—gendarmes must be posted at borders and at ports to make sure a fellow of my description does not effect an escape. It may not be so, but I have a fresh interest in prolonging my life, rather than prematurely ending it on the gallows, and I would prefer not to risk it."

She felt a little ill, imagining him being sent to the gallows.

"That being, of course, for the reason that I intend to make you my wife," he said. It was a flat, bland statement, as though he had just told her he was going to make some tea.

Christine felt a little frozen, even though her cheeks were hot. Her foot brushed against something hard. "Oh!" she gasped, catching sight of it.

"I've just remembered—" she said clumsily, because she really had, but also to thankfully turn the conversation elsewhere, "Meg Giry found this. I can't believe I carried it with me all the way, but it fit in my reticule, which I somehow managed to keep with me, even when—" She was stammering. "At any rate…" She dug it out of her bag—she couldn't believe that it hadn't fallen out or broken to pieces, during her blundering journey—and showed it to him.

His face was expressionless.

"I thought," she said in embarrassment, "I thought you might…want it. It isn't that _I_ want you to wear it particularly, only I thought it would make you feel…more…comfortable."

"Ah," he said. "I confess…" His voice was soft. "I am glad to see it. I thought I had lost it, and had nothing to make another like it. Aside from that, I had no wish to try—before you came. It seemed an unnecessary expenditure of energy and time, owing to my singular circumstance." He arose from the couch, and slid the mask slowly from her hands.

The passing of his mask reminded her eerily of that first morning in the other grotto, the first time she had seen him for what he really was. She felt embarrassed, and turned away so he wouldn't see her face.

"Meg gave it to me, when she saw me…up there," she said, glancing back at him. He looked somehow larger with it, more imposing. Christine felt her legs tremble a little.

"Does she know?" he asked sharply.

"No," said Christine. "A suspicion…an idea, perhaps. But no knowledge or certainty."

"It does not matter, at any rate," he said. "We will be at the other end of the country by the morrow, at the latest."

"You mean to leave to-night, then?"

"I do. If you wish to gather anything from your flat, I will oblige you."

"Thank you," she said dully. "And…I must write a few letters, explaining my absence." Noticing his incredulous glance, she quickly added, "I will be sure to frame them in such a way as to dispel any suspicion of my having gone off with you."

"I never knew you to tell a very good lie," he said, and then amended darkly, "except for your sordid little performance in _Don Juan._"

Christine's cheeks were hot with embarrassment. "How did I lie?" she asked.

"You sufficiently lowered my guard," he said, "to the point that I had no inkling of your real intentions. You were the bait for their trap, and do you want to know the worst of it? I knew perfectly well your role in their scheme, knew it well, and yet I allowed myself to be drawn into your spell nonetheless. I somehow became blinded to everything but you."

Her hands trembled a little. "I hardly knew what I did," she whispered. "When I pulled the mask from your face, it was a wild, desperate act. The moment I had done so, I felt so low that I wanted to die."

"Silly, isn't it, the spike and spiral of our feelings?" he asked blandly. "Fleeting and brief, such treacherous emotion. In those few moments when you wanted to die, I wanted to kill you. It is perhaps a moot confession to make now, but it is interesting to note how quickly certain outbursts of feeling can be contained, how quickly they may fade."

She shuddered.

"All my rage, therefore, which I fought to contain, became centered on your valiant rescuer." His voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"Let's not talk about it any more, please," she whispered.

"Very well," he said smoothly. "But tell me—did he suspect the reason for your breaking off the engagement?"

"I don't believe so," she said. "I didn't dare let him think it, for fear of what he might do."

"Humph!" he said, and she thought she detected a trace of disappointment. "Well—before we make the journey to your flat, we ought to make a rapid journey to my old dwelling-place. I need to retrieve a few odds and ends of my own. If you would be so good as to accompany me—"

She hesitantly took his outstretched hand, which was quite cold again, and followed him wordlessly.

* * *

She planned out the letters in her mind.

_Dear Raoul, _

_I cannot begin to describe my feelings. This ought to be said in person, but I am afraid that if I speak with you face-to-face, I might lose my resolve. You are my dearest friend—believe this. Never doubt it. I have realized, however, that we could never be happy together. The childish romance which began all this is long past. We have flirted with Cupid, and it was lovely, in its way, while it lasted; I have come to the realization, however, that while I do now and will always cherish and love you, it is as my friend only, not in the way of husbands and wives, or lovers. It pains me to say this, dear, especially in a letter, but it must be said. Know that I am well and happy, and that you mustn't lose a wink of sleep over me. You will never want for admirers, Raoul, and you will find some-one who will make you very happy. Please do not try to find me. I do not want to be found. Be assured that I am in safe hands, and I am content._

_I remain your affectionate friend,_

_Christine_

_--_

_Dear Meg,_

_You mustn't worry for me. I am well. I am happy. Do not trouble yourself another moment over me, for there is nothing to fear. I love you. I hope someday to come to Paris again, but for now, I must escape the ghosts of the past. They haunt me too vividly for me to linger. _

_God keep you,_

_Christine_

* * *

She was not entirely sure whether she was happy or not. Happiness implied cheer. She was certainly not full of that. It was, perhaps, a quiet kind of satisfaction, more than anything else. It was tentative, struggling. Her mind still fought against the idea of her current position, even while her heart awkwardly, tremblingly embraced it.

It pained her beyond words to see the ruin of the old grotto, his organ utterly destroyed, his fine things slashed to ribbons or smashed to pieces, bearing burn-marks from torches. More than a few charred, scattered bits of music littered the damp floor.

"Did they do this?" she whispered. "Or—" She didn't continue with _Did you?_ She felt too embarrassed, fearing that he might have.

He didn't answer. He didn't seem particularly bothered by the chaotic destruction of his home, which led her to believe that either he _had_ done it himself, or he had returned before this, after it had been destroyed by the angry mob. Either way, he had clearly had sufficient time to grieve over his losses, whether self-inflicted or no.

He knelt down on the dirty, wet floor and slid a loose stone from the wall. There was a little hollow from which he withdrew a small safe. After fiddling with the dial, the little door swung open and he took out a substantial amount of bills. "My little stash, for emergencies," he said smoothly, and tossed the safe onto the floor after tucking the bills into his pocket. "I daresay that while I'm here, I might as well hunt for some clean clothes. My appearance is disreputable enough without looking like a vagabond from the streets."

Christine stood awkwardly in the middle of his ruined home. He paid her little heed. When he had finally found a fresh suit of clothes, he excused himself and went into the same small cavern in which she had put on her wedding-dress. He drew the curtain across the opening, and it was some time before he emerged.

She felt dreadfully awkward, being here and reliving that horrible night over and over in her mind a thousand times. He came from behind the curtain looking far better. He had, it seemed, even found one of his wigs. She was a little shocked at the difference in his appearance, although she knew it ought not to have surprised her. He looked vastly refreshed, and seemed once again to be a little more like the debonair host he had been the first time she had laid eyes on him.

"Ah!" he said with a considerable amount of pleasure, and plucked up his wide-brimmed hat from a dusty corner. He brushed it off, and settled it comfortably on his head.

"Now Erik is himself again," he said. "Or at least a facsimile of his old self." Facsimile or no, there was a fresh confidence emanating from him.

"You really mean to come with me," he said. It was a statement, but almost a question. "You really mean to remain by my side—"

She nodded dumbly. There was no backing out now, at any rate. She could not possibly refuse him, after all this. Could she?

"To the upper world, then," he said, taking her hand again--she limply accepted his grasp. "We shall have to be very careful, my dear."

* * *

They were indeed careful to avoid being seen together, when she went back to her flat to pack, and to write her letters—neither of them were foolish enough to assume that the sight of Christine Daaé in the company of a tall, strange-looking man in a mask would escape suspicion or scrutiny. He hid carefully in the shadows and in back alleyways while he followed her. She spied him standing as still as a statue in the darkness by her flat.

She had planned out the letters thoroughly in her mind, and wrote them quickly at her dressing-table.

She was sorely tempted, after this had been done, to go and tell him the whole thing was off, that she had changed her mind. There was a strange fear in her bones. Perhaps she had been wrong in all of this, after everything. There was still time to tear up the letters before posting them. Perhaps she could go back to Raoul, try to love him the way she had imagined herself loving him before the strange realization that she never could. Perhaps she could rebuild her old life, in spite of everything.

She knew, however, that it was impossible. She could not do it. But could she really bind herself to the man waiting downstairs next to the door of her flat? Could she willingly face the unknown, give herself up to him utterly? Could she forsake her old life entirely, give up all her old friends, her home, for a murderous madman? There was no doubt that he was murderous, but _was_ he really mad, after all, or was he merely given to emotional extremes, uncontrollable fits of temper? Could she risk herself in this manner, no matter what the cause of his broiling rages?

More importantly, could she bear being with him always? She had drawn him out of the dark hole in the belly of the Opera, given him a sense of purpose, but now that this was done, could she not simply tell him she wished to remain his lifelong friend?

No. That was impossible, too. The Kiss had been one thing, that blind, searching act made in desperation to save Raoul's life, but they had shared awkward lover's kisses in the dim blue light only hours past, kisses and embraces that she could not willingly banish from her thoughts. Besides, there was no telling what he might do, to what lengths he might now go, if she dared to tell him it was off, that she had changed her mind. The consequences of that were frightening to contemplate.

Aside from that, she felt an odd little sensation while she was packing, a strange sense of freedom, of wickedness. The aftermath of the disaster, spending it with Raoul at his aunt's house, had made her feel stifled, suffocated. Despite her fears, despite her consternation, she felt a strange, fluttering certainty that this path was the right one if—oh, if only—she could muster the courage to follow it.

She went into her surrogate mother's bedroom, having finished filling her large valise with all she could neatly fit inside. "I am going away, Mamma," she said to Mme. Valerius, who sat in her chair absently darning a stocking. "Will you be all right, with Marie looking after you?"

"Oh, perfectly well," sighed the old woman, who was, as some would put it, "not all there." "But you only just came to the flat again to-day for the first time in days! I thought you would stay with me for a long time. Why are you going away, dear? Will you be back quite soon?"

"Perhaps," she said. "Could you tell Marie to post these letters for me tomorrow? I must take a holiday, Mamma. A very long holiday. Someday I'll be back. And of course I will write to you." She didn't want to alarm the poor woman, who had been so kind and was in such a fragile mental state, but she knew she could not write—at least not for a very long time—and it was probable that she would not, in fact, be back.

"Oh, I don't blame you, dear, with all those goings-on," said Mme. Valerius. "I declare, I heard something of a scandal, but you wouldn't have done anything scandalous. You told me, I think, that it had something to do with the Angel. But why—"

"Yes, Mamma. Don't ask me to tell any more, please. If Raoul de Chagny comes to see you—tell him that I have gone away, that I am safe, that you are assured of my happiness."

"Are you going away with the Angel?" asked the old woman sleepily.

"No, Mamma," said Christine. It was, really, quite true, for he was anything but the being both she and her surrogate mother had originally thought him to be. "The Angel is gone."

"Pity," sighed Mme. Valerius. "Well, dear, the best of luck. You are a good girl."

"Thank you, Mamma," Christine said, and kissed her gently on the cheek.

* * *

The moment Christine departed through the door, she felt his long, cool hand on hers. "H-hello," she stammered, feeling dreadfully shy, and a little panicked. There didn't seem to be anyone else about on the quiet little street, and she drew into the shadows with him. _Oh, God, I cannot do this, I can't, I can't._ The words, however, would not come to her lips, and other words took their place.

"I told Mamma good-bye," she said, feeling his breath against her face. It was still cold outside, even as the first hints of spring were beginning to venture forth.

"You bound up your hair again," he said.

"Oh…yes," she replied, touching it absently. "So no-one would instantly recognize me. Everyone is used to seeing it let down."

He took the valise from her, and she awkwardly took his arm. They walked through the next alleyway, carefully stepping around a sleeping inebriate with an empty bottle clutched in his hand.

He—Erik—_why must I keep reminding myself?_ she thought, although it wasn't hard to fathom why—seemed far more relaxed than he had when they had departed the Opera. His confidence was clearly building.

"We'll have to hail a hansom," he said. "When we are quite clear of Paris, we can stop in some town and take the train without quite so keen a fear of recognition."

"What will we do for money?"

"I do have a bank account, you know," he said with a little annoyance. "Besides the cash which I retrieved from its hiding-place, there is a substantial amount gathering interest in the aforementioned fiduciary vault."

She almost told him then—almost brought the words to her lips, that she could not flee with him, that there must be some alternative, but the words died in her throat, and the moment slipped away.

They hailed a cab—Erik's large hat was tilted conspicuously over his gleaming white mask—and climbed inside, after he had told the driver where to go.

Christine felt unbearably sleepy.

"I am afraid," she whispered, "afraid of going to a place which I do not know. And…I am afraid that someone will see you, and know you. Or know me." _And,_ she thought but did not dare to say, _I am afraid of _you_._

"We are traveling to a fairly remote vicinity," he said. "The chances are slim of recognition. As for where we are traveling…you need not fear. We will make a new life together, you and I."

Strangely reassured for the moment, she slowly, timidly laid her head on his shoulder, and he stiffened a little. After a long moment, his arm snaked around her, slowly and uncertainly.

There was silence for a while, but for the clatter of wheels and hooves on the pavement beneath them. She slid her fingers very lightly, almost experimentally, over the back of his hand, and he shivered.

"You ought not to have worn it," she said suddenly, referring to his mask. "What if some-one had seen, and gone for the gendarmes?"

"Old habits are hard-pressed to die within an aging man's breast," he said. "And no-one saw."

"Merely having your hat pulled down, without the mask, would surely be disguise enough," she said. "Anyone who happened to catch a glimpse of you beneath it might only think you had been injured in war. But this—" She straightened, reached up her fingers and touched the cold, smooth porcelain. She felt suddenly ill with that shadow-memory again, and was overcome for a moment. "This," she whispered, "might cause you to be instantly recognized. Hundreds of people saw you onstage that night." She felt ill again, suddenly, with guilt. She hadn't meant to bring that up again.

"Wearing it," he said flatly, "gives me a measure of comfort that you, who have surely not lacked for beauty a day in your life, could never possibly understand."

Embarrassment flooded her. His arm slipped away. He pulled his hat down a little again over his mask and looked out the window, apparently ignoring her.

She struggled for a moment, his name still not coming easily to her lips. "Erik," she said finally, and he turned to look at her. "Yes?" he asked, his voice soft.

"It's late," she said. "No train will be going at this hour…even when we're clear of Paris, it will be far too early in the morning to—"

"We can stay overnight," he said. "In fact, I planned upon it when I instructed the driver on where to go." A cold little knot began forming inside her chest. "Overnight?" she asked faintly.

He glanced at her.

Her cheeks flamed. "I—I didn't—I was only thinking that there might be danger in staying overnight, if someone were to recognize you—" This was not, in fact, the reason her voice had sounded so weakly. She was plagued by scenario after scenario, all of which concerned having to share the same room, or worse, the same bed.

Her words and his, from days before, echoed in her mind over and over.

_Have you gorged yourself at last in your lust for blood? Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?_

_That fate which condemns me to wallow in blood—has also denied me the joys of the flesh._

"The town we are stopping in is, as I said, appropriately remote," he replied, thankfully breaking her thoughts. "There is little to no chance of being identified. I promise you."

"Even so," she said, struggling a little, "I think perhaps—" She could think of nothing to say, however, and fell silent.

"If you have another alternative, I would of course be delighted to hear it," he said smoothly. She shook her head, and mutely looked out the window.

After a moment, she had the strange feeling that his eyes were on her, and she reflexively turned to test the impulse. As soon as she caught his stare, he turned nonchalantly away to look out of his own window, but for that briefest instant when her eyes found his, there was hardly any mistaking that his gaze had been hot with desire. His fingers tightened a little on his knee, although he himself moved no other muscle. She stared at the back of his head for a few long moments, her eyes tracing his broad shoulders, his long arms.

_That fate which condemns me to wallow in blood…has also denied me the joys of the flesh._

She remembered the way his hands had traced her face in the dismal cavern, this very night. He had wanted her then, she was sure of it. Why had he done nothing?

He still did not move from looking out of his window. His back was to her, but the fingers on his knee began to drum rapidly, almost nervously. She heard him humming softly, absently, some tune she did not recognize. It was not contented humming, but awkward humming, as though he were trying to occupy his thoughts.

He shot a hooded glance at her, and she saw again that desperate longing, some severe inner struggle. He seemed about to speak, but abruptly looked away once more.

Christine slowly reached out and touched his sleeve, feeling herself quiver, almost shrink. He stopped humming, and looked at her again. His pale face seemed flushed.

"Christine," he said huskily, and took her hand in both of his, pressing his lips to her knuckles fervently. Like a man possessed, he placed kisses all over her hand and her wrist. He pressed his cheek to her arm, his breath coming in short gasps. She was frozen, and not at all sure what she ought to do now.

"Erik, I—" she began, but was at a loss of what to say. He let go of her abruptly, and leaned back. "Forgive me," he said. "I don't quite know what came over me—" He turned away again, his chest heaving. His fingers returned to his knee, and slowly dug into it like claws. He did not look at her again for a long time.

* * *

They arrived in the town of Éperon at a quarter to midnight. Erik paid the driver and gingerly helped Christine out of the hansom after retrieving her valise. "If you'd rather we go on…" he said suddenly, as she clambered out, and she paused for an instant. "No," she said finally. "I'm tired. I must rest sometime, and I shan't be able to sleep in a clattering, bouncing cab."

"Very well," he said, and she thought she felt his hand tremble almost imperceptibly under hers. "I know of an obliging inn not far."

"You've been here before?"

"Once," he said, "Long ago."

They walked to what looked to Christine to be the most ramshackle inn she had ever seen. The sign was so faded that she could hardly read the words _Le Chat Blanc. _Erik knocked on the door, and a wizened oldster answered, blinking his eyes blearily.

"Closed," he said, and nearly shut the door, but Erik put his foot in it. "We require lodging," he said. "We will pay handsomely."

"Eh?" said the old man, his face pricking up a little. "How much?"

Erik handed him the money, and the old man licked his lips. "That'll get ye the suite upstairs," he said. "T'aint occupied, 'cept for a few roaches, perhaps."

Christine blanched, and the old man cackled. "Yer pretty young lady's not used to this type o' lodging, I'll wager," he said.

Erik wordlessly took Christine by the hand and led her inside. "Which room?" he asked flatly.

"One farthest to the left," said the wrinkled proprietor. "Pleasant dreams to ye. Will ye have a bite before ye retire?"

Christine stopped, suddenly feeling all too keenly that she had not eaten since that morning. Her stomach rumbled, and the old man laughed. "Hungry, I see," he said. "Well, we've bread and cheese, at least, though I daresay I won't be able to get the missis to cook anything fancier for ye 'til the morning."

"That would be fine," Christine said quickly. "If you would be so kind…"

"You've a funny accent," said the old man.

"I'm from Sweden," said Christine, her face flushing.

"Sweden, eh!" said the old man, and hobbled to the kitchen. He brought back a loaf of bread and a large hunk of white cheese, both of which looked surprisingly good.

Christine sat at the table and tore into the bread, ignoring Erik's raised eyebrow. It was, strangely, becoming easier and easier to think of him by his name. She broke off a piece of cheese and stuffed it into her mouth, and then she suddenly felt embarrassed.

"I am so hungry," she said. "I haven't eaten since this morning. I'm not usually such a pig at table. You must excuse me…"

Erik smiled faintly and tore off a little piece of bread for himself.

Christine looked to make sure the proprietor was nowhere in earshot, and then said quietly, "It was odd, that he noticed my accent, but he didn't seem to notice your mask."

"Many men here have old injuries and wounds that they hide—some don't hide them at all," he said with a shrug. "I very much enjoyed my brief stay in Éperon years ago, for no-one pointed, and no-one stared. Had this not been such a dank hole in the wall, I might have stayed. But I wanted bigger and better things, and was willing to sacrifice my personal comfort for a bit more splendor and grandeur."

"Is that how you came to be at the—" Christine broke off, suddenly, not wanting to say "the Opera" for fear someone might hear, and become suspicious.

"After a fashion," he said, and his face darkened a little as he put a piece of cheese on his bread. "That story is for another time. I don't care to discuss it at this moment."

When they had cleared the plate, the old man appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "I'll take that, thank ye," he said. "Room's upstairs, farthest on the left, in case ye forgot. I'll bid ye good-night now, and many thanks again for the obliging sum. Here is a candle, to keep yer way in the dark." He handed it to Erik, turned off the gas-lamp, and retreated to what must have been his bedroom. Christine and her companion were left in awkward silence.

She said nothing as she got up from the table and he followed with her valise and the candle, but she felt as though her whole body were being pricked by pins. _Please,_ she prayed to God, _let there be more than one bed._

They trod up the stairs, which creaked as their feet met them one by one, and made their way down the little hall to the farthest room on the left. Christine turned the knob and entered, and her vision swam.

"Oh," she said faintly.

Erik went past her and put the valise on the floor. "The nearest train-station is two miles from here," he said. "We'll go in the morning. If you are too tired to walk, perhaps someone can oblige us with the use of their horse and cart."

"The bed," she said, feeling dizzy. "What about…"

"If it would make you feel more…_comfortable_," he said, his voice sounding a little irritated, as though he had better things to worry about, "I shall sleep on the floor."

"Oh," she said suddenly. "Oh, no. I wouldn't…he said there were roaches, and the floor is so hard…"

"Then what do you propose?" he queried, not looking at her, but rather around the room. It seemed he was trying very hard _not_ to look at her, but she couldn't be entirely sure.

"I…I don't know," she said. "I don't want…I'm not…I'm not ready."

"Not ready?" he asked, finally looking at her incredulously. "Not ready for what?"

Was he enjoying this? Making her blush, making her say things outright instead of beating about the bush?

She shuddered. "You know what I mean," she said. "You know. Don't pretend you don't."

"Fine," he said coldly. "Do you think me a slavering hound? You can set your mind at rest. I have no designs of wresting your innocence from you to-night."

She flinched, and sat down upon the edge of the bed, self-consciously taking off her shoes in a way that she hoped would not allow him to see her stockinged feet.

…_has also denied me…the joys of the flesh…_

She could not get it out of her mind, the way he had looked when he had spoken those words. Had Raoul not come, she wondered if her former teacher might, indeed, have "wrested her innocence" from her on that night which seemed a year ago now. She had no doubt that it had been at least a vague intent. There had been such a hungry look on his face then, something almost greedy, something palpably single-minded.

She pushed it from her thoughts as best she could, and slid between the sheets with all her clothing on, except, of course, her shoes. "Put out the candle, please," she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. She had buried her face in it. _I shall never be able to sleep._

She heard him blow it out, and the floor-boards creaked. She felt his weight on the other side of the bed, and shivered. Her body curled instinctively away from him.

Despite thinking she would never be able to sleep, she felt her eyelids droop, and a dreamy haze began to overtake her.

* * *

She awoke in the dark, feeling vaguely frightened. "Where am I?" she whispered, and then she felt his warmth beside her, and her fingers flattened against his chest. He must have taken off his jacket and waistcoat, for all she could feel was a thin cotton shirt, with his heart pumping wildly beneath her hand. Her hand slid over and felt a little sprinkling of hair coming from the opening of his shirt. He moved then, too, and she felt his body press against hers, his hands finding her waist and sliding upward until his palms cupped her bosom. "Christine," he said, the same way he had in the cab, his voice throaty, unbearably sensuous, and she pressed her mouth against his, thinking she would die of this sinful pleasure, this hidden act in the dark. "Take me," she whispered, and his hands lifted her skirt.

* * *

Christine's eyes snapped open, and she panted, her heart pounding in a frenzy. She could feel a little wetness between her legs. "Oh," she whispered. "_Oh…_"

Was he asleep? She could hear his steady, even breathing, which surely indicated slumber.

She could not abide the disgrace she felt, or the delicious feeling which still lingered from that dreadfully erotic dream. Her breath came rapidly, and she sank back into her pillow.

For a long time she lay in silence, trying with all her might to ignore his presence beside her, sleeping or no, and then she heard his voice say, rather boredly, "Nightmare?"

She jumped, gasped. "My God," she said. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was," he said, "but you kicked me while you dreamt. I have been awake for at least a quarter of an hour."

"Oh," she said, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. "Forgive me."

"Don't trouble yourself about it," he said. "It was not a particularly _violent_ kick, although it was sufficient to waken me rather rudely."

There was a long silence, in which Christine thought she would drive herself mad. The lingering effect of the dream was causing every nerve in her body to strain towards him, but her good sense implored her not to be so rash, so impulsive.

"Erik?" she whispered.

There was silence for a moment. "Yes?"

She struggled a little. "Never mind," she said. "It's nothing."

There was another silence.

"I mean to marry you," he said, "when we reach our destination. I ought to have done it in Paris—I wanted to—but the danger was too great. I apologize for the impropriety of our conditions."

She said nothing. _If he had married me in Paris,_ she thought, _to-night would have been our wedding night. _She felt a little seizing panic, mixed with that strange thrill she had felt during the dream.

A strange thought came to her then. "I ought not to be asking this," she said quietly, "but it has been plaguing me, and I feel I shall go mad if I do not find out the answer this moment."

"Ask it," he said, "and then, for the love of God, sleep!"

She flinched. "Very well," she said. "It's…it's only…" She bit her lip, and wrapped her hands together, gathering strength. "In the grotto…that night, the night when…"

"Yes," he said coolly.

"Well…it seems odd, that you would talk of impropriety now, but then…that night…you were going to…to…" She couldn't continue, but she was certain her meaning was clear. "Weren't you."

She heard him hiss between his teeth, and she shrank a little. "You would do well to forget about that," he said, his voice strained. "God knows I have tried."

"Impropriety didn't seem to matter to you then," she said dryly, before she could stop herself. Good God, was she mad, to say such things?

"Confound it!" he roared, and she swiftly jumped out of bed, terrified at his outburst and chagrined at her own lack of sense. She heard him leave the bed, too, and she backed against the wall.

He lit the candle, and stood staring at her from across the room. "You know perfectly well I was not myself that night," he said between clenched teeth. "I was mad. I was desperate. I was enraged, and quite literally at the end of my tether."

She began to feel incredibly foolish for ever having brought it up at all. Her hands shook, and she grasped her fingers to steady them.

"I had every intention of plundering your purity that night," he said. "Yes. It is true."

She stood silently, her back pressed against the wall.

"Is it so unthinkable," he queried vehemently, "that I have since come to my senses, and wish to do things properly? Why would you ask me such a thing? Do you want me to take you now? Heaven help me, I will, if you wish it!" His voice was hoarse, and there was color in his cheeks.

She shrank even farther against the wall, feeling herself blanch.

"Forgive me," he said abruptly. "You are young and naïve, and I am old and foolish."

There was a long silence.

"You really ought to sleep," he said, his fingers sliding absently back and forth on the end-table, and drumming a little, as they had in the cab. "You look pale, and there are dark circles beneath your eyes."

Christine felt strikingly self-conscious. "Oh," she said dully.

"I have…much to apologize for," he said. "I had hoped you would forgive me. It galls me to say it, but I made many a wrong choice in my miserable attempts to court you, to impress you and win your love."

_I was blind,_ she thought, but said nothing. He was right, however. He had frightened her too much.

He gave a long sigh.

She abruptly remembered something she had almost forgotten, something hazy and faint.

_You denied me, turning from true beauty…_

The cemetery. Visiting her father's grave.

She shuddered.

He stared at her. "Get back into the bed," he said. "You needn't worry. I shan't touch you." His voice was heavy, a little aggravated.

"Blow out the candle," she said. "Please."

He obliged her.

She slid between the sheets again, and felt the creak when he got into the bed on the other side.

It took a long time, but finally sleep overtook her once more.


	4. Chapter III: Uncertainty

Christine's eyes fluttered open. The light of morning peeked in through the dilapidated curtains, and she noticed that she was alone.

She sat bolt upright and looked around the room for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. She swiftly got out of bed and pulled on her shoes. Just then, he entered the room, and their eyes locked.

"Where did you go?" she asked, feeling a strange relief.

"I went to inquire about transportation to the railway station," he said. "I found an obliging enough fellow who will drive us there at an exceptionally low charge."

She nodded, walking past him to the mirror. She had kept her hair bound up while she slept, but it was beginning to come loose. She washed her face in the little basin, then took the remaining pins out of her hair and shook it out so that it tumbled down her back. She suddenly became aware, from the reflection in the mirror, that he was staring at her. She blushed, and turned around.

He seemed embarrassed to be caught, and awkwardly smoothed his jacket. "You are very beautiful," he said.

She bit her lip. "I'll join you downstairs directly," she said. His mouth twitched, and he nodded.

After he had gone, Christine quickly used the chamber-pot and washed her hands in the basin. She hoped fervently that the water was clean and had not been used to wash some-one else's hands—the water _looked _all right, at any rate, but who knew, in this place?

She went downstairs and saw a middle-aged woman setting out plates. "You must be the one from Sweden," said the woman. "My husband mentioned you last night."

"Your husband!" said Christine with some surprise.

The woman shrugged. "When I was eighteen, he was nearing fifty, and he took me off my father's hands. That was close to twenty years back—he's got good blood, and he'll likely live another several years yet."

"Oh," said Christine. "Forgive me—I meant no disrespect."

"Don't worry about it, dear," said the woman. "It's common enough 'round here. Funny thing, though—your own husband…" She glanced suddenly at Christine's ring finger, which was of course bare, and grimaced. "I mean to say…your…ah…man…"

Christine blushed.

"At any rate…how old is he? Past forty, to be sure…and you can't be more than twenty."

"Twenty-one," said Christine uncomfortably.

"Close enough," said the woman. "But you're not very far off from our situation. When you come to be my age, he'll be fairly old himself, though not quite as old as my Albert."

Christine blanched. She hadn't quite thought of it in that way.

"Have you seen him just now, by-the-by?" she asked, quickly changing the subject. "He came downstairs, but I don't see him anywhere."

"Went out for a stroll, after eating one of my sausages," said the woman. "No doubt enjoying the brisk spring air. It'd do him good, too, being so pale, though he looks healthy enough."

At that moment, Erik came through the front door to the inn. "Ah," he said, his gaze falling on Christine. "There you are."

"Let her eat, poor girl," said the woman. "I'll even pack up some victuals for the way, if you'd like. Seems you've a long journey, if it's from Éperon to Culot."

Erik said nothing.

"Don't talk to many women, do you?" said the woman with a sage look in her eye.

Erik seemed a little taken aback. "What?"

"It's in your manner. Well, but it's a mercy you've managed to land such a pretty one," she said. "But it's true what they say—a man cares more for the look of a woman than a woman cares for the look of a man."

Christine quickly ate her sausage, trying to ignore the conversation, which was heartily embarrassing her. "Thank you," she said to the woman, who took her plate. "You've been very kind."

"Godspeed you on your journey," the woman replied, handing Christine a little kerchief filled with food.

* * *

The man Erik had hired drove them the two miles to the station in his horse-drawn cart. The trip was a fairly silent and awkward one.

"Fine weather we're having," grunted the man.

"Quite," said Erik blandly.

Christine was forced to sit quite close to him in order to avoid contact with the driver. Erik's strange, stale smell—the smell of underground—was quite preferable to that of pig manure.

"Pretty little lass there," said the driver. "Pretty as the morning."

"I'll thank you to keep that to yourself," said Erik coldly.

Christine's cheeks were so warm with humiliation she felt dizzy.

"I meant no offense, of course," said the driver, seeming a little miffed. No-one spoke until they reached the railway station.

"Thanks for the fare, master—and milady," said the driver, tipping his hat. "Good luck to you."

Erik went to the ticket window and talked with the ticket-master while Christine waited on a nearby bench. He came back bearing two railway _billets_ in his long hand.

"The next train will be here in twenty minutes," he said. "Are you feeling quite well?"

"Fine, thank you," she said, although it was a lie.

"The train does not stop in Culot," he said. "It changes direction before reaching it. We shall have to find another carriage to take us the rest of the way when we disembark at the final stop before it."

"Very well," she said. "Out of curiosity, what is in Culot, that you should be so eager to go there?"

"As I said, it is remote," he replied, "and I happen to own some property there, which has been looked after for some time by an acquaintance of mine."

"Acquaintance?" asked Christine dully. The very idea of him having an acquaintance sounded strange.

"To be more precise," he said, and paused. "My half-brother."

Christine stared at him in surprise. "Half-brother?" she said slowly.

"Fifteen years ago," he said, "I happened to be passing through the part of the country where occurred the unfortunate incident of my birth. I made a few inquiries. It seemed my mother had died of consumption several years before, and my father had taken another wife not long after her passing. I don't blame him for doing so. My mother was hardly an easy woman to live with."

It was so strange, to hear him speak so naturally of such things. He had a family. He was no dark changeling. She knew this, had always known it, but hearing him speak of it aloud was yet another jarring manifestation of his humanity, his ordinariness.

"This new wife of his bore him a child—a normal child," he said with a little bitterness, "which I daresay made him far happier than did my mother's bearing me. The boy was, at that time when I happened to be in the country, fifteen years of age. I had no desire to see any of them, but word spread that a masked man had been asking questions concerning the family. My half-brother was an impetuous young man. He cornered me in the street, wanting to know what my purpose was, why I had been gathering information about them. He said his father had gotten wind of it, and he had never seen him looking more uneasy. It was as if he had aged overnight, but he would not tell his son what troubled him. 'What is this hold you have on my father?' he demanded. I might have gotten angry, but I laughed instead. He looked so much like my father. It had really sunk into my soul that this was my younger brother, that here was a lucky soul who had been born of the same father, but had escaped my fate—and indeed, perhaps my misfortune was carried in the blood of my mother, rather than my father. 'Let us go see him,' I said, 'your father.' And so we went, and my father turned as pale as ashes when he saw me. I was in my thirtieth year then—I had run away from home when I was ten, which had been twenty years before—but how could he fail to recognize me? My appearance is, after all, distinctive. I could see from the look on my step-mother's face that she knew who I was, that he had told her. My half-brother was the only one who remained unenlightened. So…I enlightened him. There were rough words after that, by all of us, but at the end of it, it was, surprisingly, a fairly civil reunion, if a bit strained."

"What happened then?" asked Christine, thoroughly drawn into the story by now.

"I stayed in town for two days," he said, "at the request of my half-brother, who for reasons unfathomable, wanted to get to know me better. I confess, however, that the bond of blood, no matter how tainted, has an alluring pull on one's curiosity. He was no spoilt brat, as I had thought he must be when I had first heard of his existence. He was no pampered prince. Had he been, I think I might never have thought on the matter again. But we built a strange kind of filial rapport between us, strained as it was, and decided to keep a correspondence. It was far from regular, but it did cause me to not feel entirely cut off from the human race. When my father died three years later, a part of his inheritance passed to me—for, knowing with a certainty that I was alive, as he had not for some time, his conscience would not allow him to pretend me deceased. My step-mother soon followed him in death, owing to a perpetually weak constitution, and my half-brother, a lad of eighteen, became the owner of the family property, the larger part of my father's inheritance having passed to him. He sold it and moved to Culot—outside it, at any rate—and has, as far as I am aware, lived there ever since."

"Does he have a profession?" Christine asked.

"He is a stone-mason," Erik replied, "as was my father."

"You kept up correspondence when you lived in the bowels of the Opera?"

"On occasion," Erik said impassively. "As I said, our correspondence has been anything but regular."

"Does he know you are coming?"

"No," he said with a little amusement. "I daresay he'll be quite surprised to see me. The property I spoke of…I procured it two years ago, and he has obligingly looked after it for me, as I said, for it is not but half a mile from his own house."

"Two years ago?" Christine repeated musingly. "I did not know you then." It seemed strange to think of those days, when the world had been ordinary, when no strange forces had been at work. She could scarcely remember it, despite its being a relatively short time past.

"No," he said uncomfortably, "but…" The train-whistle sounded in the distance, and he broke off, looking relieved.

It was on her lips to ask him what he meant, but the whistle sounded again, and she felt a sudden bolt of panic deep within her breast. There really was no turning back. This was not a whim, or a game. He really meant to carry her off to a distant part of the country, where the chances of ever seeing anyone she knew from the old life were, at best, little more than none. And hadn't she agreed to it? She might have said no at any time, might have refused, or—

"Are you well?" he asked softly. "Truly?"

She closed her eyes. "Yes," she whispered. "I'm well."

She felt his fingers on her face, touching her skin as lightly as spider's-legs. "There's no color in your cheek," he said. "You look as though you are about to faint."

"I shan't," she said hoarsely. "Really, I shan't." Contrarily, she really felt as though she were going to swoon at any moment.

His fingers pressed a little more firmly on her face. "Christine," he said. "Christine—"

"Oh, dear God," she whispered. "I _shall_ faint."

"Come, now," he said. "Come, pull yourself together, there's a good girl…the train is almost here, you know..."

He was grasping her by the arms now, pulling her to her feet. "Are you ill?" he asked. "Are you hurt?"

"No," she said. "Dizzy…afraid. Oh…so afraid…"

"Don't be afraid, beloved," he said, and there was something odd in his voice, something hypnotic, something bewitching. "You aren't afraid. There's nothing to fear."

Her body relaxed, sliding against his. She felt as though she were floating. Her surroundings seemed hazy.

_I remember this feeling,_ she thought._ I remember…_

It was almost there, at the edge of her memory, but then it vanished. She nestled her cheek against his chest, deep and barreled. "I am not afraid," she said dreamily, for she wasn't. Not any more.

* * *

Ten minutes after they had boarded the train, the feeling began to wear off.

Christine came to her full senses while her forehead rested on Erik's shoulder. She sat upright at once.

"How could you?" she gasped. "Oh…how could you?"

He glanced at her irritably. "I didn't wish to carry you onto the train in a dead faint. If you intend to be perpetually hysterical for the remainder of the trip, I might be forced to hypnotize you again."

Her face grew white and pinched with anger. "I am surprised," she said coldly, "that you did not use that trick on me the night you abducted me from the stage."

His fingers twitched in the folds of his arms. He said nothing.

"I suppose you had wanted me entirely conscious then," she said sardonically. "Not limp and half-aware while you took your fill of me." She was suddenly shocked at herself.

He closed his eyes, and his mouth tightened into a white line. "Do you intend to tell the whole tale to the other passengers?" he queried. "If so, perhaps you ought to speak louder."

Christine felt deflated, as though she had been a great balloon pricked with a pin. Her scalp felt hot and prickly, and it seemed, indeed, that several pairs of eyes were resting on her. She sank down in her seat a little, willing herself from sight.

"What were you going to say," she asked quietly, staring out the window at the scenery rushing past, "before we heard the train whistle?"

He stirred a little beside her. "You did not know me," he said, "when I came to own the property outside Culot. But I knew you."

She turned quickly, her eyes meeting his. "What do you mean?" she asked slowly, although she thought she already knew.

"In January of that year, I came to be sitting in my box," he said calmly, "and I beheld a vision of loveliness onstage. She moved with a subtle grace, and her face was fresh and youthful, brimming with sweetness and beauty. Her greatest instrument, however, was lacking in certain disciplines. Her voice wanted warmth and emotion. It did not want for skill, although it required shaping."

Christine sat frozen to her seat.

"Through reliable sources not hard to find, I learnt the vision's name," he continued smoothly, and it seemed his face had a new kind of bright flush to it, as though he were steeped so deeply in memory that he could not help reliving his passion and delight. "I watched her perform, night after night, and I became convinced that I ought to be her tutor, that I could sculpt this budding rose into a brilliant, shining jewel. But how to make myself known, I wondered? How to reveal myself, without frightening the poor girl? I hit upon it one day, after certain information had reached my ear, but I harbored far more than a desire to become her tutor. I wanted to be her husband, her lover."

Christine felt as though the scarlet in her face would surely spread to the roots of her hair. There were few enough passengers, thankfully enough, and spread out generously so that they surely could not overhear his quiet narrative as they might have heard her loud outburst. Her whole body felt unbearably warm. That last sentence of his was a sensuous, sliding caress.

"She had no other suitors—none, at least, in whom she seemed to take a visible interest," he said, his voice seeming to harden a little. "I determined to win her, by any means I could. I was rash and impulsive. I traveled to Culot over a week-end, and bought the property I mentioned with money I had embezzled from the m—" He broke off here, and glanced around furtively before continuing. "With…my money," he amended. "I chose the location because I was aware that it might take some time to woo and win her over, and that I should have to remain in Paris during this time. I therefore asked my half-brother to watch over the property while I was away. He was unaware of the reasons for my strange behavior, and even in the last letter I wrote to him, in the week following the Masqued Ball this very year, I did not care to enlighten him completely on my dreary circumstances."

He sighed, glancing at her. "I preyed upon her youth, her naïveté. I overheard her speaking to a friend, of an old story she was fond of, and I saw my chance. I styled myself as the mythical Angel of Music, and ensnared her in this ill-conceived trap to win her affections."

"I believed," said Christine softly, "because I wished to." She had, indeed, embraced the idea all too eagerly, desperate for some scrap of proof that miracles existed. It was all well and good now to wish that he had not deceived her. If he _had_ been confident enough to introduce himself to her in the first place as a man instead of an invisible supernatural being, would she have accepted him? She didn't know. She almost didn't care to think on it—it was too jarring a possibility that in lieu of accepting him, she might have spurned him far more cruelly and willfully than she had several months ago.

"When, however," he continued, as though he had not heard her, "my flower made an unfortunate renewal of acquaintance with the young heir to a noble family, I acted stupidly. The impulsive revelation of my true nature was not a happy one, and the object of my desires seemed to shun me utterly. She clave to the young noble instead, even going so far as to enter into an engagement with him. I was in a dreadful state for several months. When I emerged from that delirium of rage and torment, with _Don Juan Triumphant _the indisputable proof of my talent, I had an idea—a mad idea—that perhaps, if I could get her to perform in my opera, she would be persuaded to return to me. I thought I would impress her. I sought to lure her back. That went badly, too, and then…five nights after the final disaster of my ill-fated love affair, imagine my surprise when I happened upon a limp form in the catacombs, whom I recognized in an instant. It was a happy turn of chance which brought me to venture out that evening, though it was but for a short while. She brought all my former hopes to glowing life when she agreed to fly from Paris with me. I recognize the spectacular fortuity which is mine, the strange twist of fate which has caused her to return to a man she ought to despise with her whole soul. I apologize if my behavior, at any time, has caused her undue distress. I did not intend—I never intended—for it to be so."

Christine felt a little numbed at this unexpected depiction, this strange confession.

"I acted stupidly, too," she said. She was not attempting to excuse his actions, but to take at least some share in the blame. Some might have called her blameless—Raoul certainly would have—but she had felt a creeping guilt over several of her actions regarding Erik for some time.

"I've frightened many people," he said flatly, looking away. "You are young. It follows that you would not be immune to the effects of my black deeds."

She struggled for a moment. "My heart," she said, "my very soul, told me to accept you in spite of fear, even in spite of what you had done. My mind would not allow it."

He turned his head once more to look at her. There was a carefully contained eagerness in his eyes again. "Has the soul," he asked quietly, "at last triumphed over the mind, then?"

"Mostly, or I should not have come back," she said. "But it has not conquered entirely."

"Ah," he said, looking slightly disappointed.

Everything seemed to have become more strained since last night's goings-on. Ever since that horrid awkwardness of sharing a bed, and the frank implication of his ongoing desires, an oppressive cloud seemed to hang over them, between them. She was afraid to touch him, afraid to even look him in the eye.

They sat in silence for what seemed an age. She heard him humming again, so softly as to be barely audible, and when she glanced at him, his eyes were closed and his head laid back upon the seat. His arms were still folded, and his fingers were still. Clearly he was not humming out of nervousness. Was it merely a longtime habit, something to fill the silence? He must have endured so much silence underground that it was no wonder if it was so.

"What is that tune?" she asked.

His eyes opened, but he looked at the ceiling of the train rather than at her. "_Symphony for a Morning,_" he said. "It's incomplete. I do hate it when a work of mine goes unfinished."

"It's very lovely," she said shyly.

This time he did glance at her, looking both embarrassed and pleased. "Thank you."

"Will you finish it?"

"No doubt," he said lazily. "Ah, if only I had my violin again. I shall have to procure another. Perhaps I shall even try my hand at making my own. I must, of course, invest in a pianoforte as well."

"Oh, wonderful!" she said. "It has been so long since I played."

He looked at her, a vague appearance of surprise stamped on his features. "I confess," he said, "I have never heard you play. I did not know…you never even spoke of it."

"I might not even be able to remember how. It was long ago. Years ago," she said. "When I was a girl, in Sweden."

"Your father?" he asked.

"Yes, Pappa taught me," she said, a fond, faraway little smile on her face. "Oh, dear Pappa."

"It is strange to me," he said, "the idea of being so attached to one's parents. I never cared much for mine, but you must have had a happy childhood."

"Oh, I did," she sighed. "It was magical, growing up in Sweden, with all the stories, and the frosty nights, curled up beneath a great goose-down comforter. I confess I never liked Paris half so well. But I have gotten used to it, and it feels strange being uprooted once again."

"We'll live there if you wish," he said, "in Sweden—when a few years have passed, and the affair of the Opera Populaire is long forgotten, so that we might leave the country in peace."

"Oh, I would like that," she said, a faint smile on her face. She was lost in thought, remembering the blurred face of her mother from years before, the smell of her apron on baking-day. It was hard to remember what her mother had looked like.

She felt his cool fingers creep to her hand, resting lightly upon it. "Whatever can be done," he said, "to make you happy…I shall strive to do it. I want so badly for your happiness."

"I know," she whispered. She let him wrap his hand around hers, and she was pleasantly surprised at how good it felt. She gave his hand a little squeeze, and he pressed her fingers to his lips. "I love you," he murmured, his voice thick with passion.

She felt that seizing little iciness of panic in her chest, the agony of not knowing what to say. She felt as though she were an animal in a trap.

She swallowed, shooting a nervous little smile at him and then quickly looking out the window. He let her fingers drop, and she quickly returned her hand to her side.

* * *

It was late afternoon when they reached the stop closest to Culot. Christine had eaten nearly all the food in the kerchief—Erik had eaten hardly anything at all; she privately wondered how he survived—and nearly bored herself to tears with staring out the window at the trees. She was glad to disembark at last. It had been a tense and silent few hours, after the "I love you" fiasco.

She took his arm as they walked, a kind of unuttered apology. His muscle tightened a little beneath her hand.

"All of this," she said in a subdued voice, "has been…difficult for me. I am trying. I really am."

"I trust, then, that you will not object to becoming _mari et femme_ once we arrive in Culot," he replied emotionlessly.

_Mari et femme. _Husband and wife. Christine shivered. "I will not object," she muttered. Really, what else could she say to such a proposition? To object now, at the figurative eleventh hour, would be nigh unconscionable.

The seriousness of the situation had not impressed itself entirely upon her when she had rashly gone to seek him out in the dark tunnels. The gravity, the responsibility, had not made its way into her impulsive thinking. What had she imagined, what had she thought would be the outcome of their reunion? Why had she not realized the utter foolishness of her actions, the consequences in store? No—she _had_ realized the consequences, but in theory only. It had spiraled out of her control, beyond the pale of her stupid fantasies. Had she really imagined that she would be the one in power, the one holding all the cards?

She had not minded the idea, at first, of being married to him—when it seemed a comfortable, vague way off, some shadowy, nebulous possibility. Now that it was encroaching upon her—indeed, every minute bringing her closer to the final outcome—she felt like a frightened child, huddling in a dark corner, awaiting and dreading some nameless horror.

That thought made her grimace, suddenly. Horror, indeed! Surely not. In the old days, after he had revealed his true self and the very thought or suggestion of him was enough to frighten her out of her wits, she might have considered the idea of coupling with him horrific. She had possessed that strange, unconscious idea in her head for so long that he was somehow more than a man, someone monstrous and beyond her ken, that it was still a little difficult to think him as anything else. Of a truth, ever since she had at last come to her senses and really knew him for a man—only that, nothing more, however remarkable his gifts and uncanny abilities—he no longer horrified her, not really. He frightened her still, it was true, but he did not fill her with the same unimaginable terror, despite his gruesome acts of the past.

"If you would go into that little copse of trees for a moment," she said, suddenly. "I need to ask something of you."

He obligingly obeyed her, despite his apparent mystification.

When she was quite sure that no-one could see them, Christine put her hands on the lapels of his jacket, shivering like the hunted before the hawk. "If you…if you could kiss me…" she whispered, her face hot.

"Kiss you?" he asked, and there was a numbness in his voice.

"Yes," she said. "D-don't think me wanton, or abominably fickle…it's only that I think it might, perhaps, reassure me a little, perhaps, as to my present course. Please—"

He leant forward uncertainly. After what seemed an eternity, his lips met hers. The kiss was cool and timid. He lingered, however, and she began to feel his mouth grow warmer.

The kiss hovered, and did not break. Very soon, his trembling hand cupped her cheek, and she timidly wrapped her arms about his neck. He sighed, deep in his throat. Their mouths pressed more firmly against each other, and she felt her back scrape the shaggy bark of a tree.

"Christine—" he sighed against her lips, a little desperately. The ponderous cold porcelain was pressing annoyingly against her cheek, and the bark of the tree poked painfully into her back.

His hand traveled from her cheek to her throat, the backs of his fingers sliding lightly over her flesh.

"Even a little?" he whispered, and she knew what he meant, knew it for the echo of an earlier question.

"I think," she said, "perhaps…a little." She could not quite bring herself to say the word _love._ He, after all, had not—at least just now.

"All along?" he asked, his voice soft and uncertain. "Or quite recently?"

She shook her head. "I don't know," she said. The feather-light touch of his fingers made her skin tickle. She shivered.

He pulled away from her. "What about _him?_" he asked, his voice deceptively calm, but laden with drops of poison.

"I…I thought I did, once," she said uncomfortably. "I'm not certain, anymore, if I ever did, at least—in that manner. There are different types of love, you know." She felt a weird little hitch in her throat when the word tumbled out.

"Enlighten me," he said coolly.

"Must we speak of such things?" she asked desperately. "I hardly know what to say, and it embarrasses me."

She straightened, having been leaning with her back to the tree, and began walking quickly and nervously out of the small grove. His gait was so long that even though he followed, he was soon ahead of her.

"I don't know what to think, or feel," she said dully, and he slowed, letting her catch up. She absently slid her arm into his. "I never really have, since the whole matter began. My thoughts and feelings have been a confusing whirlwind of which it is difficult to make any solid sense."

"Mayhap that is why you have so often allowed others to do your thinking for you," he said coolly, and she flinched.

He was right—painfully right, and perhaps that was why it cut her so keenly. He had struck a nerve.

"Like you?" she muttered suddenly, feeling a little stab of viciousness. She was both gratified and ashamed to feel him flinch as well.

"Like your Vicomte," he retorted. "If I remember overhearing correctly, you had no wish to take part in their plot to ensnare me. He convinced you quite thoroughly, however."

"Better to be convinced," she rejoined, "than to be forced. Or was I imagining it, when you placed that horrid choice before me, with him dangling from a rope?"

"I never attempted to force you into anything," he said. "It was, perhaps, a rather unorthodox method of persuasion."

"Persuasion!" she snapped, ripping her arm from his. "On the one hand, if I wished to leave, I should have had his life on my conscience. On the other, if I wished him to live, I should have had no alternative but to stay. You do not consider that you were attempting to force my hand?"

"A moot point, considering how circumstances have changed," he said evenly. "You've done quite admirably thus far as to thinking for yourself. Might I remind you that you have insofar raised little to no objection at all to our journey, or to the prospect of our legal, binding union."

Christine closed her eyes for a moment. "If I had really wished to leave, after coming upon you again," she said, "if I had tried, would you have let me go?"

He was silent for a moment. He glanced at her. "I don't know."

"Would you have kept me down there, in the dark, to prevent my leaving you again?"

"I told you," he said tiredly, "I do not know."

A scathing reply bubbled up to Christine's lips, but she held it back. This spat seemed worthless—a pointless waste of energy and words.

When they arrived at the carriage-house, there was no difficulty in procuring transportation. Christine thought that Erik's mask might indeed cause him to appear disreputable, but apparently a gentleman dressed in fine clothing—even if it _was _a little dusty—might wear whatever he liked on his face, as long as he could pay.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately, it seemed further conversation would have to wait. The carriage filled with three other passengers. Christine privately lamented having to spend more than an hour—two, most likely—in a little black, moving box, enduring the stares of other people, being forced to sit close to Erik, unable to say a word to him without it being immediately overheard and scrutinized.

Far worse, however, proved to be the case. One gentleman seemed bent on engaging everyone in conversation. His idea of starting a conversation was to probe and question about the other passengers' personal lives.

Christine dreaded being the next in line for questioning. She thought she might be spared when the older woman sitting next to the gentleman engaged him quite amiably in meaningless conversation for a while, but at length he turned his attention toward the couple sitting across from him—namely, Erik and herself.

"That is an interesting mask," he said, and Erik twitched, shooting an annoyed look at the man. "May I ask of what it is made?"

"Porcelain," said Erik curtly, and looked pointedly out the window.

"You were injured in war, perhaps?"

Erik looked coolly back at him. "No," he said bluntly, again turning his gaze out the window.

"An accident, mayhap?"

"May I ask," Erik said between his teeth, "what business on earth it is of yours?"

The man looked a little taken aback. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not mean to be offensive."

"Nevertheless, you managed to do so," Erik replied coldly.

The man really looked uncomfortable now, even a bit put out. "I assure you—" He broke off with one look from Erik—an icy glare that could have frozen hot, dancing flames.

"So," said the man, a little nervously, "where you do hail from, _mademoiselle?_"

Christine abruptly realized he was speaking to her. "Paris," she said curtly, realizing too late that she should have named another place, any place but Paris. What if the man were well-acquainted with the news-papers? What if he knew, suspected? What if they would be found out, of all things, in this horrid little carriage? Would they stop the driver and call for the police, to have them arrested that very instant?

"You don't look at all well," remarked the man. "Is anything the matter?"

"I am quite well," rejoined Christine. "It is only the cold. I get quite peaked in the chilly weather." She said this airily, drawing on all her acting abilities.

"Do you travel alone?" the man asked.

Christine was shocked at his impertinence—but perhaps it was not meant to be an imprudent remark, owing to the fact that this man seemed utterly unaware of the officious, overbearing nature of what seemed to him to be perfectly normal questions.

"No," she said, glancing at Erik. "I do not travel alone."

The man looked a little ill, apparently realizing his error.

"Surely you aren't father and daughter," said the older woman.

Christine felt Erik twitch again, although he made no move to look at anyone or anything besides the scenery. Her own face felt hot.

"No," she said. "We are not."

"You know, I heard of something in Paris," said the older woman suddenly. "There was some strange goings-on with a singer named…what was it? Danube? Datte? Oh, surely not…what _was _the name? This old head…"

Christine felt Erik's body stiffen beside hers, almost imperceptibly. He seemed unnaturally still.

"You say you are from Paris, dear," said the older woman. "Do you recall it?"

She almost said _no_, but realized sensibly that this would draw suspicion upon herself. "I do recollect something," she said absently. "It was at the Paris Opera, was it not?"

"Yes, the very one," exclaimed the old woman. "Something about a singer…oh, I do _wish_ I could recall her name…and a madman, who tried to kill half the audience and spirit the poor girl away. Dreadful scene!"

Christine happened to glance down and saw that Erik's fingers were violently clenched on his knee, so tightly that his knuckles had gone yellow. Whether this was out of anger, fear of discovery, or both, or some other emotion entirely—she had no idea. His face was turned from her, still staring out of his window.

"Yes, it was quite a chaotic affair," she said stiffly. "The whole of the Paris police force became involved. I don't much care for opera, myself." Immersed in her role, the lie came easily.

"Nor I," said the other gentleman, who had not spoken a word until that moment. "Silly, screeching sopranos and pot-bellied men strutting about pretending to be great lovers—ah! It turns my stomach, the lot of it."

"Now, you mustn't say that," said the old woman chastisingly. "Some of it is very beautiful."

"You are, of course, a woman, _madame,_" said the gentleman respectably. "Women seem more inclined toward those sorts of things, I find. Myself, I'd rather be playing at a game of cards, or betting my luck at the horse-races. That's a man's pastime for you!"

* * *

Christine could have leapt from the carriage when they finally arrived in Culot for the relief it brought her to disembark.

"Thank heavens!" she whispered, when the carriage had clattered away. The older woman and the other gentleman were apparently both going on to a town farther down the road. The nosy gentleman got off at Culot, but had thankfully been ruffled enough by Erik's coldness and Christine's connection with him to not pay them the slightest heed as he quickly walked in the other direction.

"Excuse me," said Erik to an elderly passer-by, "would you be so kind as to direct us to the nearest place of worship?"

"Eh?" asked the old man, digging in his ear a little. "What's that, now?"

"A church," said Erik, and something went a little cold in Christine's bones.

"Ah," said the man. "Well, there's only two churches in Culot—one Catholic, and one Presbyterian. The Catholic is down the street apiece and to the right. The Presbyterian is that way, on the outskirts." He gestured vaguely. "They just finished Tuesday Mass at the Catholic church, I think."

"Thank you," said Erik curtly, and grasped Christine by the arm. She flinched, but was hardly in a position to resist as he pulled her down the street with him. When they reached the church, people were filing out. Erik pushed through them with Christine and her valise in tow, and walked purposefully up the middle aisle. It was a quiet little church, made of stone, with two beautiful stained-glass windows on either side.

The priest and the altar-boys were clearing away the implements of the Eucharist when Erik and Christine reached them. Christine shrank a little, but Erik's hold on her arm did not loosen.

"I don't know how often you receive requests like this," he said, as the priest looked their way, "but would you be so kind as to marry us?"

"Marry you?" asked the priest, looking askance at the mask and at Christine's white face. "Is this union of an urgent nature, my son, that you should come upon me so suddenly requesting it?"

Christine thought she knew what he meant by _urgent_—trying to mask an illegitimate conception, perhaps—and she felt spots of color appear in her cheeks. "My God, no!" she said, without thinking, and everyone looked at her. She wanted to sink into the floor. More than that, however, she wanted to run as fast as her legs could carry her, away from Erik, away from Culot, away from this ogre of responsibility and of pressing, merciless decision-making.

"We merely wish to be married sooner rather than later," said Erik. "And we wish it to be done properly, which is why we have come. If you please—"

"Of course," said the priest, "as long as the young lady is not objectionable?"

_I am going to faint,_ thought Christine.

A few seconds ticked by, each one seeming like an hour. "No," she said weakly, "I am not…not objectionable."

"Very well, then," said the priest. "Have you rings, my son?"

Erik started a little. "Only one," he said with a hint of chagrin. "I have not had time to procure one for myself."

Christine felt a little chill in her bones when she realized that the ring he was speaking of, the one for her, could only be the one she had given back, when she left with Raoul.

The priest pursed his lips. "Damio," he said to one of the altar-boys, "have you a piece of string, perhaps?"

"No, but I know where some is," said the boy. "I'll run and fetch it." He ran off.

"String?" asked Erik.

"You can tie it around your finger," said the priest, "until you buy yourself a proper ring."

The other altar-boy snickered a little, until the priest gave him a sharp look. "A solemn occasion, Robert," he said, "does not call for chuckling."

"Yes, Father," said the boy, looking quite serious again.

* * *

When Damio returned with the string, the ceremony was performed rapidly. "Forgive me if I seem to rush," the priest explained beforehand, "but I am very tired after Mass, and wish to go home to rest—that is why I suggested the string, as a temporary measure, rather than your hurrying to a shop to buy a proper ring before the ceremony. You did say, besides, that you wanted to be married quickly, did you not?"

Erik's hand was cold and dry in hers. She didn't dare look at him when he slipped the ring on her finger, and she felt a little silly tying a piece of string around his.

"You are man and wife now," said the priest. "May God bless you."

Christine closed her eyes as Erik placed a cool, seemingly emotionless kiss upon her lips.

* * *

A few inquiries in the street revealed where a little shop which sold jewelry was located. Erik purchased a relatively cheap band made of plain silver.

When he removed the string and replaced it with the silver band, he stared at his finger for a long moment, as though he were fascinated by the look of it.

"So," he said softly, "we are married. Do you think married life will suit me, Christine?"

She looked at him sharply. Was he making fun of her? "I don't know," she said curtly. "I could not say."  
"Perhaps you will be happier when you see our house," he said. "That ring looks well on your finger, Christine."

She thought she detected a trace of accusation in his voice, and self-consciously covered her hand.

"I suppose," she said, "that we will travel now to see your half-brother."

"To-morrow I will send a letter requesting that my funds be transferred to a closer bank," he said. "In the meantime, to conserve cash, we shall have to walk."

"How far?"

"Two miles to my half-brother's house. He will, no doubt, oblige us by driving us in his cart for the remaining half a mile to our new abode."

"I suppose I can walk that far," said Christine, a little doubtfully. "When my father and I lived in Sweden, we would sometimes go ten miles, looking for someone who would pay to hear us perform."

"He would, no doubt, carry you for much of it," replied Erik.

"Not much. I was a strong child, but I'm afraid I've grown soft during my sojourn in Paris," rejoined Christine.

"We shall see," said Erik calmly. "Come."


	5. Chapter IV: Union

**A/N: Thanks so much for the positive reviews, and for the many, many people who have added this story to their Favorites/Alerts without leaving a review; that said, don't think me greedy, but I would like to graciously ask if those of you who did so could drop me a line, even if it's short, as this story is still in its infancy and I really would like to hear in detail what people think of it--adding to Faves is all well and good, and it lets me know in a nebulous sort of way that you enjoy the story, but it doesn't quite take the place of some solid feedback. There's just something incredibly rewarding about reading a review; simply adding to Faves lets me know that you're obviously intrigued by it, or you wouldn't have added it, but it's also a lot more impersonal and doesn't really let me connect with my readers as much. I like hearing your individual voices; it's one of the great experiences about being a writer on this site. You certainly don't have to give me any sort of feedback if you don't want to, but I simply wanted to let you know my reasons for hoping you will. **

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The walk seemed to take years. They spoke little.

Her hand rested a little uncomfortably in his arm. He was warm, a pleasant respite from the cold air around her, and she drew a little closer to him.

He had a fine build, she noticed (for what was certainly not the first time, but perhaps the first time she had truly allowed herself the luxury of dwelling on it). He had long, oddly slender hands, but his arms were powerful, his shoulders broad, if a little stooped. He had the chest of one who is accustomed to singing long notes; it was round and deep. She wondered if he had ever performed in his youth.

His face—what could be seen of it—was not, perhaps, a particularly handsome one, not classically handsome, at any rate, but there was a kind of pathos and smoldering beauty in his lidded eyes, his languid mouth, twisted and swollen out of shape as it was. There were lines of age and weariness upon his face, most shallow, but a few quite deep, as she had noticed many times before. She remembered that he had mentioned being thirty years of age fifteen years ago, which would put him at forty-five years of age at present. He was more than old enough to be her father.

_Had _this been the right course? She had been so oddly certain of it, when she began, so determined to be courageous and to see it through. They were wed, as per his promise, and she could do little to alter her course now. She still could leave, at any time, she supposed, run to some distant place, where he could never find her, but what would be the purpose of that? Such an act might well kill him, and she could never bear that, even if it meant her freedom.

Her hand tightened on his arm, and he glanced at her. "Is any thing the matter?"

"No," she said rotely. "Nothing is the matter."

He ceased walking. "When you say 'nothing,'" he said, "I have—perhaps prematurely—arrived at the conclusion to-day that it is not so simple as that. If I am correct—if aught is, in truth, troubling you, I would have you tell me." He took her chin in his hand, forced her to look at him.

Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. "I am overwhelmed, beyond the pale of reason," she said. "I feel as though I have been swallowed up in some great chasm. I had thought that since R—he was not, after all, the answer, then it must be you. But now I am uncertain. Should I have sought you out at all? Should I, perhaps, have plotted my own course, independent of my past experiences and acquaintance? Was it right, after all? An—Erik—"

She had almost called him _Angel, _out of old, long habit. She was really weeping now, the tears rolling down her face. He took her in his arms, and she pressed against him gladly.

"You are mine," he murmured. "You have been mine since I first laid eyes upon you, since you first heard the strains of my voice. I had desired others before—thought myself infatuated, even enamored, before—but never so keenly or painfully as this. Christine, Christine, you are mine, and you have always been meant to be mine. Never doubt it! We will be happy—so happy! Will we not, beloved? Married life _will_ suit me—it will. You'll see. Your influence will make me a better man. It already has."

"Perhaps," she whispered. "But I don't—I still don't know for certain if…" His mouth was very close. Her lips brushed against his, impulsively, and he shivered, his eyes flickering. "I'm your husband now," he murmured. "Husbands take care of their wives, do they not? They watch over them, provide for them, their every need. You have nothing to fear from your husband_._" His mouth nudged against hers, their lips pressing together. Her hand slid over his chest, and he sighed, deep in his throat.

"I am still terribly afraid," she muttered, pulling back a little, "frightened of what the future will bring—dreadfully afraid of what will become of us."

"It is not far now, to Etienne's house," he said, and abruptly continued walking. It seemed that he was deliberately avoiding an answer to the last fear she had voiced—could it be that he was at least as disquieted as she, but was expertly hiding it?

* * *

They arrived just as it was getting dark. It was a moderately-sized house, made of stone, which was no surprise, considering the owner's profession.

Erik knocked vigorously. After a moment, the door swung open.

"My God!" said the man who answered, whom Christine knew at once to be Erik's brother. He had the same slightly hooked nose, the same hooded eyes (though they were both the same rather nondescript shade of brown, unlike Erik's). Beyond these, however, the similarities appeared to end.

Etienne was far more muscular than Erik, and his hands were large and broad, rather than slender. His cheeks were round, while Erik's were gaunt and slightly sunken. There was a ruddy tint to his face and hands, a sharp contrast to Erik's unsettlingly ghoulish pallor. His voice was slightly deeper than his older brother's, but it was far less rich in tone and timbre—it lacked smooth, sliding sensuality and was instead bordering on a kind of raspy roughness. His hair was sandy, with a few premature streaks of grey; Christine guessed, although she had no proof, that Erik's, conversely, had once been quite dark, owing to his wig.

"_Bon soir,_ Etienne," said Erik. His voice was genial, but wary, and very tired.

"You sent me no word that you were coming," said Etienne. "If I'd known—"

"Circumstances dictated a swift flight from Paris," said Erik. "My life has taken a few strange turns lately, for the worse—and for the better."

Etienne suddenly appeared for the first time to notice Christine, who was holding tightly to Erik's arm and feeling very awkward. He regarded her for a moment—and the ring on her finger—with an expression altogether inscrutable.

"_Bon soir, monsieur,_" she said faintly. "It seems I am your…your sister now." Strange, to think of it in such a way, but that was the way of these things, was it not?

"_You _have been married?" Etienne asked incredulously, looking at Erik. "I must confess—think me no churl, Erik, but—I never thought to see you married. Especially—"

"Are you going to invite us in?" Erik asked brusquely.

"Ah, yes, yes, of course," said Etienne quickly. "You must excuse me—you shocked me by appearing so suddenly on my doorstep, after all." He motioned them inside.

"Sit, please. How, ah…how long have you been married, then?" he asked uncomfortably.

"Not more than an hour," Erik said, taking a seat. "Even less, I should think, although I have not been keeping an exact count of minutes."

Etienne looked a little taken aback. "You were married here in town, then, just now?" he asked.

"_Oui,_" said Erik, his voice a little curt. "We traveled from Paris. The house, which you have obliged me by looking after…"

"Of course," said Etienne. "Erik, why did you not write to me and tell me of all this?"

"There wasn't time. As I said…"

"Yes, about that…what precisely, if I might be so bold as to ask, precipitated this 'swift flight?'" inquired Etienne. "You aren't in trouble with the law, are you?"

Christine could feel her face go a little pale. She looked away so that it wouldn't be noticed.

"Something to do with her?" asked Etienne. Christine suddenly felt quite annoyed at being treated as though she were not in the room, or as if she were deaf.

"Yes," she said curtly, looking back. "Something to do with 'her.'"

She was gratified to see him look a little ashamed. "Forgive my rudeness, _mademoiselle…_I mean, _madame,_" he amended quickly. "You must understand, however, that my half-brother has given me considerable cause for alarm on his account before, and I was hoping that this particular incident would not prove to be the case. But I'm afraid I have taken leave of my manners. I have not even inquired as to your name."

"Christine Daaé," she said, not thinking. "I…I mean…that is…_née_ Daaé. Erik never told me your family's surname, which must now be mine." Such an idea seemed even stranger than all the others.

"It's Benoit," said Etienne. "Why did you not tell her, Erik?"

"She never asked," Erik replied coolly.

"Daaé is…a very beautiful, unusual name," Etienne said, apparently used to his half-brother's terse behavior. "Where does it come from?"

"Sweden," said Christine. "Although even there, it is unusual. I'm not certain how my family came by it." She was puzzled by Etienne's strange manner. She could have sworn that she had seen a flash of recognition on his face at hearing her name. Was it possible Erik had mentioned her in his letters, after all? If so, she felt a little embarrassed. What might he have said, or revealed?

"You plan to stay in Culot, then?" he asked.

"_Oui,_" said Erik. "For a time."

"May I speak to you privately, for a moment, Erik?" Etienne asked abruptly. Erik glanced at him sharply. "Anything you might say to me," he said coolly, "you ought to be able to say to my wife."

It gave Christine a little jolt to hear herself referred to as such. She bit her lip, and looked at her fingers.

"Erik—oblige me, if you would," Etienne said tightly. "Excuse us, _madame._"

"You—you may call me Christine, if you wish," she said with a little consternation. "I am, after all, your sister-in-law."

"Very well," said Etienne. "Erik—if you would—?"

Erik got up stiffly from his chair, followed Etienne into the kitchen and closed the door. Christine had no wish to be a busybody, but she could, nevertheless, catch snatches of the conversation through the door, and at length her curiosity could stand no more. She crept closer and listened.

"What have you done?"

"Nothing that need concern you."

"I recognized her name. You wrote it over and over in your last letter, saying it was like beautiful poetry. What circumstances caused you to flee Paris? Did you cause some kind of scandal with the girl?"

"In a manner of speaking, but not the kind I think you suggest. It was far worse than any thing you might dream up, but you needn't know anything about it at present. Let the matter drop. What business is it of yours, at any rate?"

"If you are in trouble with the law, you cannot stay here. Think what consequences you might bring upon us all! What if they suspect me to be in league with you?"

"Don't be ridiculous. No-one will think to look here, in Culot! Insofar as she and I keep to ourselves, what suspicions could possibly come upon us, or you? No-one besides my wife even knows of your connection with me."

She thought he got a kind of gratification out of saying _wife._ There was an odd tone in his voice whenever he happened to mention it.

"But they might discover it. And then, what?"

"The property is mine. I have every right to live in it. You risk nothing by living half a mile from my dwelling, I assure you. I am not so foolish as to risk drawing attention to myself, or ignoring any imminent danger. At the first sign of trouble, we will immediately pack our things and leave. You might even serve as a valuable source of information on that point."

Etienne's voice rose a little. "Is that what I am? A tool, to be used for gathering information? Is that why you have come?"

"We came because I happen to own property here, because it is a secure, temporary solution. I cannot buy another property elsewhere as of yet, and I cannot leave the country. Where else could I be expected to live? In that hole underneath Paris? No longer! I grew sick of it. I was like a rat in a trap!"

"I told you to come, to get away from that fiasco, after your last letter. You never wrote back. I assumed it was a refusal. Now you come to my door, having had some kind of scandal in Paris, and intend to hide out in Culot until they've forgotten about you. Had you listened to your younger brother in the first place, such scandal would likely never have occurred. No-one would have to be fearful of hearing the law pound on their door in the middle of the night—namely, me!"

There was a pause, and Erik's voice began to sound vaguely malevolent. "Had I left Paris at that time, I should have lost her for ever. Would you have liked to see me miserable, Etienne? Is this what rankles you so completely, that I have found a measure of happiness, that I am, by some strange twist of fate, wed to the woman I worship? Do you suddenly envy your disfigured half-brother, Etienne, after pitying him all these years?"

"Don't be preposterous, Erik. What was your purpose in coming here, at any rate? Why did you not go straightway to your house?"

"I thought perhaps that it might be appropriate to enlighten you on my arrival. But tell the truth, Etienne. Now that you have outgrown your childish brotherly attachments, you are ashamed of me. You are afraid that someone might surmise our connection, not because you are afraid of repercussions from the law, but merely because you do not wish to be associated with me! My appearance unnerves you more than ever—and you fear it might unnerve others in the town and cause them to shun you as well. Is that not so?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

Erik's voice was something like a hiss. "As long as I was an isolated freak, you had no fears. But now that I am married to a beautiful woman, you fear I might attract a significant amount of attention. You fear people might ask questions. 'How did he come by that beauty?' people will ask. 'What is his reason for being in Culot?' And, naturally, people might surmise our relation, based on our scant facial similarities."

"The attention might attract the law. That is all. You are a relentless blood-hound of reason, Erik. You have a mind like a steel trap. Why could you not have put it to better use? You might have flourished in Paris, had you tried."

"Don't patronize me. I could never have flourished in that place as I would have wished. That city does not accept freaks into their high-flown society—it does not let them perform onstage, or be seen in good public."

"I am sorry. I forgot, for a moment—and you are my brother, and I ought not think of you with disdain. But surely you can understand my alarm at seeing you on my doorstep, claiming to have been forced to make a speedy departure from Paris, with a veritable little Swedish goddess clinging to your arm."

There was a long silence. Christine drew back a little from the door, her face hot.

"She must drive you quite wild with love," Etienne's voice said sardonically.

There was another long pause.

"In a word."

"How did you come to convince her to marry _you?_"

"Your tone is hardly flattering, but I concede the point. How can I tell? She came back to me, after I had indeed thought her lost for ever—she sought me out, and we reconciled our less than rosy history. We fled from Paris. We married. Now we plan to live together in that house for as long as we might be secure in it."

"Have you given any thought to her being a police plant? That perhaps she is leading them to you?"

"Don't be absurd, Etienne. If that were the case, I should have been arrested in Paris immediately. Besides, she would not…" He trailed off, and Christine realized with a pang that he was no doubt remembering how she had nearly been the instrument of his demise on the stage, part of an elaborate plot that was meant to lead to his capture. But surely he could not suspect her of such a dreadful thing now! As he said, it was absurd. She would not have come all this way with him if she meant to give him up to the police. She had had a hundred opportunities to have him apprehended. She could have told any number of people who he was. Surely he must see how ridiculous it was to believe otherwise!

"Be wary, Erik. I do not wish to mar your happiness, if indeed it is genuine, but surely you see how absurd, indeed, it is that such a charming creature should have attached herself to you in the first place. What reason would she have for doing so? Or perhaps you forced her into it?"

"Do you intend to continue insulting me, Etienne?"

"Erik—I am merely attempting to speak the truth."

"The possibility, it seems, has not occurred to you that someone might learn to look beyond my grotesque appearance."

"I never meant to offend, merely to point out—"

"Thinking the worst of someone is not like you, Etienne."

"I am merely thinking of your welfare. And hers, if the shoe is on the other foot."

Erik's voice was cold. "You are jealous of me. Admit it."

"I am most certainly not. Break off this marriage, Erik, for the good of you both. You have not consummated it yet, I assume."

Christine flushed scarlet. Her fingers dug into the wood of the door-frame.

Erik's voice was now deathly cold. "That is decidedly none of your business."

"Very well, I concede that, admittedly, but—"

"Do you merely wish to have her for yourself, this 'veritable little Swedish goddess?' Is that why you persist in this outrageous behavior?"

"No, of course not—"

"I nearly killed for her, Etienne. Do not suppose I treat this matter lightly."

"Killed for her? What ever do you mean?"

"Her lover. I nearly killed him so I could have her."

"What!"

"Don't look so shocked. After coming to my senses, I let them go, and was ready to kill myself or starve to death when she sought me out, and gave me fresh purpose."

"Consider it, then, Erik. Why would she have come back? It makes no sense. She must have some hidden motive for having done so."

Christine could hardly bear listening to more of this. She thought she would go mad, but she didn't dare open the door or speak.

"I've had enough, Etienne. I am going now." She heard the scrape of a chair, the swish of a hat. She drew back. Erik's voice was pinched. "You've begun to turn into our father."

"For all his faults, he was a good man."

"He was a superstitious door-mat," Erik retorted violently, and swung the door open. Etienne wordlessly handed him a small ring of keys, and Erik snatched them from his hand. Christine sat nonchalantly in her chair, but her fingers gripped the armrests rather nervously.

"Are you ready to leave?" Erik asked curtly. She nodded.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Etienne," she said coolly, attempting to be polite. She was determined not to show that she had been listening.

"If hospitality it could be called," muttered Erik, and pulled her gently to her feet after grabbing her valise.

"_Au revoir, mada…_Christine," said Etienne uncomfortably.

Erik snarled a little and walked swiftly out the door with her, slamming it shut behind them.

"The little beast," he said between clenched teeth, when they had got clear of the house. "I will not lower myself to ask for the use of his cart. You and I can walk quite well the remaining half a mile to our abode."

"But it's becoming quite dark," she said. "Are there any highwaymen about, in Culot?"

"It's a sleepy town," he said. "I have never encountered any."

"Did you quarrel?" she asked, trying to be nonchalant.

"Did you not hear raised voices?"

"I did, but I was not sure—you seemed to hold him in some regard, when you spoke of him before, and I was unwilling, at first, to think—" The lie brought color up into her cheeks, but fortunately this went unnoticed.

"He's changed, has Etienne," said Erik brusquely. "He did not used to be such an insufferable prig. I had expected him to be happy for me, but instead was met with nothing but suspicion and disdain."

Christine could think of nothing to say to this without giving away her eavesdropping. Too, another matter was pressing on her mind. Time between herself and her wedding-night was rapidly disappearing.

* * *

When they at last reached the house, Christine was shivering. Erik quickly unlocked the door with one of the keys on the small ring and they entered the house. "I'll get a fire going," he said. "In the meantime—" He opened a small closet and rifled around for a moment before taking out a blanket. "Wrap yourself in this," he said. Christine gladly obeyed him.

"Erik," she said uncertainly, "why did you not live for years in some place like this, instead of under the Opera?"

"It is difficult to explain," he said. "They were still building it, you know, ten years ago—the Opera. I helped them to finish it. The place was close to my heart. And the music…ah, the music. I don't know why, specifically, I chose to stay. Something of the hustle and bustle of the city appealed to me, despite my craving for peace and quiet—which was met nicely underground. I thought I could perhaps have two sides of one coin, if I abided beneath the ground in the Opera. I could come up into the city when ever the mood suited me. It was a perfect arrangement for quite some time."

"Will you tell me now, how you came to be there?" she asked, shivering still beneath the blanket. Erik guided her to the parlor and knelt before the fire with a box of matches. Christine curled into one of the high-backed, upholstered chairs. She wondered, suddenly, how _It _would happen. Would he ask her? Demand it, perhaps? Would he simply lead her upstairs? Would he remain downstairs while she retired, and then unexpectedly join her?

Her cheeks flushed.

"That story," he said, "is best kept for another time."

"That's what you said earlier," she replied.

"Are you determined to know it?" he asked, a little irritably. He struck several matches and finally lit the fire.

"No," she said. "Merely…merely curious." She found herself staring at his broad back, at his long legs bent beneath him. She shivered, but not from cold.

A memory came back to her, of the first time she had removed his mask.

She remembered, with a fresh surge of the old horror and pity. Crawling around on the floor on his hands and knees, seemingly exhausted and heart-broken after going into that dreadful rage, during which she had thought he might kill her. His words as he knelt in a despondent heap on the floor had been as an agonized, desolate prayer. His hands had been held out—

_Stranger than you dreamt it—_

_Can you even dare to look, or bear to think of me?_

"Once you're warm," he said, staring into the flames, "light a lamp and go upstairs." She felt a little shock at being brought back to the present.

"There is a room," he said, "at the very end of the hall that I think would suit you. You'll want to unpack your things." He grabbed a poker from the fireplace and gave the logs a few brief, rapid jabs. A little spiral of sparks went up. She thought she saw his tongue flick nervously across his lips.

_This loathsome gargoyle who burns in hell, but secretly yearns for heaven…_

_Secretly—secretly—but, Christine—_

She sat in silence for a moment. She swallowed, and slid slowly from the chair, leaving the blanket behind, and walking past him.

_Fear can turn to love._

She felt unbearably warm.

_You'll learn to see—to find the man—_

His eyes were on her—she could feel them, burning into her back as she began to leave the room. She stopped, suddenly, her hand on the smooth wood of the entryway. "Erik," she said in a small voice.

"Yes?" His voice was hoarse.

_The man—behind the monster._

She didn't dare look at him. Her fingers tightened on the entryway. "I…when…" She wanted to ask _When will you come? _so that she could be at least moderately prepared, but the words stuck in her throat, and she felt dizzy and hot.

_This repulsive carcass—who seems a beast—but secretly—_

_Dreams of beauty—secretly—secretly—_

_Oh, Christine._

She rushed from the room without saying anything further, grabbing her valise and going quickly up the stairs. This was not the scenario she would have chosen, had she been at liberty to choose one of those she had imagined.

It was very dark, barring the flickering fire-light from the parlor. She had forgotten to bring a lamp.

_I cannot possibly go back and ask him for one,_ she thought. _I cannot. _

Resolved to find her way in the dark, she held out her hand and felt along the wall once she reached the top of the stairs. Her imagination, however, began to run away with her, and she imagined someone lying in wait for her, a robber, perhaps, lurking in the impenetrable dark—a bogey, or a monster—

She could bear it no longer. She put down her valise and grabbed for the banister, making her way down the stairs again.

"I…I need a match," she croaked, when she reached the parlor. "For the lamp…"

He stood up, and she twitched back a little. He held the box out to her, and she reached out, slipping it from his grasp with quivering hands, feeling the rather shocking heat of his usually cold palm as her fingers brushed against it. She nearly dropped the matches, but managed to contain herself.

"Thank you," she said faintly. Her mouth felt dry.

He said nothing.

"Where is a lamp?" she whispered. He pointed wordlessly to a side-table behind her. She swiftly grabbed the lamp and lit it with her back to him, and then turned around.

He had not moved. He was still staring at her. His mask glittered in the light of the fire.

She felt as though she were under the spell of a cobra, rooted to the spot as long as she looked at his eyes. _I could die in those eyes,_ she thought, _fall into their chasms, one dark-brown, the other startlingly light-blue. I could spiral. I could float. _

The lamp nearly slid from her grasp. She tightened her hold on it.

Still they stood, looking at each other.

"Th-thank you," she said awkwardly, and quickly went past him, out of the parlor and up the stairs. She took hold of her valise, which lay on the floor near the railing, and made her way down the upstairs hall to the bedroom Erik had described.

A little chill passed over her as she took hold of the doorknob. Her fingers trembled as she entered, putting the lamp down on a night-table near the door.

There was a large armoire in the corner, beautifully carved, with a matching vanity table and mirror. The bed was large as well, with a canopy. She ran her hand over the smooth counterpane, enjoying the cool, silken feel of the blanket beneath her fingers. Feeling as though she were in a strange dream, she opened her valise and withdrew a modest nightgown. She had never worn anything scandalous in her private life. Her only allowance for that sort of thing had been on the stage, when it was all play-acting, and no-one seemed to care if a woman went about in trousers or scanty clothing.

She felt almost embarrassed now, after having put on the night-gown, looking at herself in the mirror and realizing how prudish and childlike she appeared in it. Rather than feel safe, she felt a little silly.

_Virgin sacrifice,_ her mind whispered, and she shuddered.

Suddenly feeling a surge of boldness, she reached into her valise and drew out a lacy chemise, something she had only ever worn beneath her clothing as an undergarment. It was long, but it was sleeveless.

_Do I dare?_ she thought. Besides, it was so cold…

The boldness inexplicably triumphed. With a quick glance at the door, she unbuttoned the nightgown and slipped into the chemise instead, quickly diving under the covers and curling into a ball for warmth.

Minutes passed, minutes upon minutes, and still the lamp flickered on the night-table, her only companion. There was no sound on the stairs. She began to wonder, feeling a little chagrined, if he was coming at all. A sort of half-relief settled in her bones, mixed with a strange twinge of something else. She dared to admit to herself that it was very like a touch of rejection.

Suddenly, she began to feel angry. She needn't have changed out of the nightgown into this silly chemise at all. If she was to sleep alone, she might as well do it warmly.

Just as she slipped out of bed and was reaching for the nightgown, she heard the stairs creak. She froze, feeling strangled and panicked. _My God. What do I do? What shall I—_

She closed her valise and quickly weighed her options, painfully aware that the footsteps were coming closer. Pretend to be asleep? Stand in the middle of the room, waiting for him?

She chose the former—cold and panic overtook any other struggling emotion. She dove back under the covers, pulling them up to her chin. The door was slightly ajar. She saw a little flicker of light through the crack. The footsteps paused.

After a long moment, the light beyond the door went out, with a little _whoof_ of air. Feeling paralyzed, Christine stared as the door was pushed open very slowly, ponderously slowly. She saw his silhouette in the doorway and closed her eyes.

She tried to breathe evenly, but her breath was slightly ragged. She shivered beneath the blanket, both from the residual cold of the outside air and from the icy fear which was clenched around her breast, like an iron band.

Finally, she could bear it no longer. She opened her eyes.

"Where did you get—" she began, without thinking, and then snapped her mouth shut, feeling self-conscious. He was wearing a dressing-gown over a nightshirt and sleeping trousers. A pair of slippers were on his feet. She realized he must have had a supply of clothing here.

His fingers drummed absently—or nervously—on the side of his leg. "Do you…like your room?" he asked softly. "Is it pleasing to you?"

"Yes," she whispered. "It pleases me very much."

"I am glad to hear it," he said, and in the dim light of the lamp, she could see him swallow.

"Do you mind," he asked, his voice seeming to shake a little, "if I put out the light?"

She shook her head dumbly. When he blew out the light, and the room went completely dark, she felt the iron, icy band seize her again, more powerfully than ever. Her hands were shaking under the counterpane, trembling uncontrollably. She curled them around the sheets to steady them, as she listened to the shuffling steps come around to the other side of the bed.

There was a very long pause. There was a little scraping sound—he must have put his mask on the sill—and then, a soft, sliding sound. She could only assume he was removing the dressing-gown and slippers, and perhaps other garments as well.

Her mind felt numb. She thought that if she moved, or spoke, if she did anything but stare into the darkness beyond her, she would go mad.

There was a creak, a shift of weight, and she shut her eyes tightly, unable to stop herself from shaking. She felt his hands touch her hair, and it was all she could do not to bolt out of the bed.

After a moment, however, as his hands continued their smooth, quivering path along her scalp and tresses, she began to feel herself dizzily relax. His fingers slid rather firmly across her forehead and temple, tracing the line of her ear. He moved closer, and she barely held back a gasp at how warm his body was, even though it was not yet touching hers.

"What is that you are humming?" he suddenly asked sharply.

She had not realized it. She sat up, feeling embarrassed. It was the tune he had sung the words to, the words which clung stubbornly in her mind.

_You'll learn to see, to find the man—_

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't—I didn't mean—I was remembering something."

_Fear can turn to love._

_You'll learn to see—_

"Will you sing for me?" she whispered. "Something soft and beautiful?"

"Why?"he asked quietly. His hands slid along her hair again, fingering the springy curls. His breath was on her neck.

"I like to hear you sing," she whispered. "It makes me feel calm."

His hand brushed against her shoulder, and he seemed to realize for the first time what she was wearing. "Christine," he said, his voice coming huskily from the back of his throat, sounding uncertain and barely contained.

"It's all right," she said weakly. "You don't have to sing—if you don't wish to—"

He didn't answer. His fingers slid slowly and warmly down her arm. "In a performance of _Orfeo_, when you played a Bacchian nymph, your shoulders were bare," he said, his voice a caress that was not quite a whisper. "It was the first time I saw them, glimmering like pink pearls." She felt him pull the lacy cloth which covered her shoulder aside, leaving the tender skin exposed. His hot breath made her quiver, and when his lips met the space between her shoulder and neck, she thought she would die.

"Christine," he whispered. "Christine—" His voice was nearly a groan.

She was shivering uncontrollably from the cold of the air and the heat of his hands. She wriggled a little, and he hissed between his teeth. His mouth nuzzled her ear, his lips wet and seeking.

He pressed against her, his hand sliding up her other shoulder and pulling that lace down as well.

"Erik—wait—" she gasped, jerking away. She heard a sharp intake of breath, and quickly turned around, nearly tangling herself in the coverlet and her long chemise. She felt for him with her hands, unable to see in the darkness. "It isn't—it isn't what you think," she whispered. "I'm afraid."

"Afraid?" he breathed.

"I…I don't know how to explain myself. Perhaps the idea of surrendering entirely…" There was a flush up the back of her neck. There was a struggle in her breast, and finally the words flowed from her like water.

"I do love you," she whispered. "More than I have allowed. I think, perhaps, that is what frightens me. I am terrified to love you—terrified, beyond words, of what will become of me if I do."

"The mind is still attempting to conquer the soul," he said throatily, his long fingers tracing the bones in her face. "Give yourself to me, and perhaps it will at last be silenced."

She shivered.

"You really—you really love me?" he asked. His voice was tentative, wary. There was a tremulous hope lingering in it, however, something reflected in the gentle exploration of his hands.

"Yes," she whispered, and added, in her mind, _Yes—God help me._

"More than a little, you mean?" he asked.

"Ye—yes…"

"Why?" he inquired incredulously. His hands had not ceased touching her face.

"Because…" She didn't dare say it. Her breath seemed stolen.

"Because?"

At length she at last allowed the words to fall from her lips in a whisper. "Because—I am certain, desperately certain, that your soul was not always twisted or hidden beneath a shadow. Beneath it lurks something desperately powerful, something hauntingly beautiful, something which—which pulled me to you irresistibly, in spite of everything. The first time I kissed you, the very first time, it was not only out of pity, or to induce you to change your mind about that dreadful ultimatum. It was because I wanted to. I felt you, somehow, felt with a surpassingly overwhelming keenness all the years of pain and anguish, and I wanted, more than anything, to erase them—if only for a moment."

She gingerly felt for his face in the dark, laid her hand on his malformed flesh. He shuddered.

"Are you ready, then?" he whispered. "Do you trust me?"

"I…" Christine's breathing was labored, her voice a quiver of air. "Ye—yes. I think so…"

His hands grabbed her chemise, near her thighs, and began to pull it upwards. She shivered, feeling vaguely outside herself again.

The bunched hem of his night-shirt brushed against her legs. She sank backwards, her head falling on the pillow, and felt him awkwardly touch her breasts. His breath was coming in pants.

Something hot brushed against her thigh, something incredibly unfamiliar and alien. It was long and firm, almost spongy at the tip. She forced herself not to panic as it sought out the opening between her legs and, after a fumbling moment, began to press itself almost violently against the thin barrier of flesh which kept it from proceeding any further. There was, for a brief moment, a dreadful ripping feeling, as though she were being torn in two, and then a hot rush of pain.

"_God,_" he gasped, and Christine whimpered. She shut her eyes tightly against the horribly weird, scraping feeling of this rod of flesh sitting in her insides, this burning, moist intruder. His mouth closed on hers clumsily for a moment, then withdrew, and his hips began to shove and rock the thing inside of her back and forth, a strange, maddening rhythm. Little moans escaped his throat. She thought he would crush her with his weight. She could hardly breathe.

It seemed it might never end, his hot breath on her face, the solid weight of him pressing her into the mattress, this embarrassing, painful invasion of her body. Was this all it was? Was this all it would ever be?

"Ahh—" he groaned, and his body gave a great twitch, and then another.

He didn't move for a long moment, merely quivered on top of her, and then, after an eternity, he slid away from her and rolled over on his back. She took a deep, thankful breath, although it was laced with a dreadful disappointment—she had been expecting something more than this, more than the frenzied, painful act in the dark.

Suddenly she gasped. She fumbled for the box of matches, and the lamp, and looked at her thighs when the light flickered to life.

There was no blood, as she had thought in a panic—or at least, no more than a little. What she had felt on her thighs was merely some strange, clear-whitish substance, slippery and jelly-like, which clung to her fingers when she touched it.

She didn't dare look at Erik.

"Don't turn around," he said, merely cementing her resolve not to look at him. "What is it? What is the matter?" She felt his fingers land lightly on her back, but then his hand quickly slipped away, as though he were embarrassed to touch her now that _It_ was over.

"I thought I was bleeding," she said numbly. "But it isn't blood. It's something else." She suddenly realized what it was—memories came back, of girls at the Opera giggling and whispering about "seed," and she thought she would die of humiliation.

There was a tense silence behind her for a moment.

"When men—experience great pleasure—" he said awkwardly.

"It's all right," she said quickly. "You needn't explain."

She felt exposed, sitting there in her crumpled chemise with her back to him, his slick byproduct all over her thighs, bits of it glimmering like translucent silver amidst the dark, secret thatch of hair.

After a long moment, she blew out the light, and lay back in the darkness. She shivered, and drew the covers around her more closely.

"Do you mean to stay?" she asked, realizing only after the words had left her lips how rude she sounded.

There was a pregnant pause.

"Would you prefer me to go?"

She could hear the rawness in his voice, like an exposed wound.

"No," she said quickly, even though her mind screamed _Go away, for God's sake!_

The old Christine would surely have said something to that effect. The new Christine, however, merely lay silently in the inky darkness of the room, trying not to think about the horrid, fiery throbbing between her legs.

"Did it hurt you?" he asked suddenly, hoarsely. "I didn't mean—"

She said nothing, preferring to be silent.

"I—forgive me," he said. "Christine—" She felt his fingers whisper against a few stray strands of her hair, but though they lingered for a moment, quivering, he quickly withdrew them yet again.

"It's all right," she replied rather numbly. It wasn't, not really, but she hardly knew what to think or say.

Neither of them spoke after that.

After a long time—what seemed like an hour—she heard his breathing gradually become even and steady. She felt a swift rush of anger. He was sleeping comfortably, while she lay in a crumpled, throbbing heap. She had an awful impulse to strike him for a moment, but she hardly would have dared even if the desire to do so had lingered.

Her anger was soon replaced by an overwhelming exhaustion from the events of the day. Her eyes tightly closed, she finally slipped into the strange, in-between place where blank dreams overtook her completely.

* * *

**A/N: While I love the musical, I'm not generally a huge fan of including certain lyrics from the musical in fanfiction, since (depending on which song is used) it tends to sometimes break the realism and seem incredibly inconsistent. (Within an actual musical, characters are singing their words all the time, with very little non-musical speech, if any at all; in prose, conversely, when characters always consistently **_**speak**_** their words and then suddenly start thinking about a time when they rather unrealistically **_**sang**_** a bunch of words out of bloody nowhere, it just doesn't always make much contextual sense; that said, it's all right to occasionally insert some non-rhyming lyrics and suggest that they were spoken, which is what I'd normally do, as with the lyrics from **_**Wandering Child**_** in Chapter 2.) The particular memory of Christine's in this chapter, however, along with the accompanying circumstances of their wedding-night, seemed to be served quite well by including those particular lyrics from _Stranger Than You Dreamt It_ and intimating that they were indeed sung rather than spoken—mainly because, while it's rather difficult and distractingly amusing to imagine a lot of ordinary people randomly bursting into song all the time in real life, it isn't quite as**** hard to imagine an isolated incident or two of Erik himself—owing to his musical prowess—singing an on-the-spot song aloud. A lot of musical geniuses are rather brilliant at improv, after all.  
**


	6. Chapter V: Awakening

Christine awoke during the night, her limbs alive with frightened frenzy. She felt blindly in the dark for someone who was nowhere within her reach.

A soft cry burst forth from her lips; she was madly afraid. Perhaps, just as in her dream, she had fallen into some black, dank place where she was the only human being for thousands of feet, buried beneath the ground in a soft tomb.

At length her fingers brushed against a cold hand. It grasped hers firmly, and she felt an oddly overwhelming relief which encompassed her entirely. She rolled over, crushing herself to his warmth, his substance. His solidness was strangely soothing, something connecting her to the earth rather than the nebulous, treacherous realm of dreams.

In the few moments after this uncanny, winding spell was broken, she felt faintly embarrassed at the close contact. _Why is it, then,_ she thought silently, _that I cannot move, or am unwilling to?_

There was a long silence, while she breathed heavily.

"I had a nightmare," she murmured. Her face tingled, fighting off a keen sense of humiliation. She wished she could snatch the words back out of the air, make them into something less than a dreadful cliché, but it was far too late for that. She thought then that perhaps she ought to say something else, something that mightn't make her sound so childish—but she could think of nothing.

There was another pause, strained and stretched like cat-gut. "Do you have them often?" he asked curiously.

"No," she said dully. "Not often."

He said nothing in response to this.

At another time she might have been far more embarrassed and moved away from him after all, and indeed, she was briefly tempted to do just that. Moments upon moments passed, however, and for reasons she could not begin to describe, she remained where she was, unmoving.

She calmed herself by listening to the thudding of his heartbeat beneath her hands and face. There was a different smell to him now that he no longer wore his musty garments from beneath the Opera; there was a clean smell to the nightshirt, and the skin of his throat and chest bore a strange, subtle, vaguely unwashed scent. It seemed natural, male.

It was not unpleasant or acrid, by any means—it drifted gently into her nostrils, and there was a kind of odd allure to it that she likely would not have expected, had someone described it to her in words. She had a sudden urge to run her lips and hands over his skin, to breathe in his scent more fully and feel the rough smoothness of him, like marble come alive with softness.

Something else came to the forefront of her mind then, something which abruptly brought her lurid fantasy to a swift end. She felt the dull pain between her legs, knew all too sharply that she ought not wake his appetites by engaging in such acts, or she should almost surely find herself at the business end of his spear of flesh once more.

A bland echo of resentment accompanied the thought, but in spite of this, their embrace was insofar comfortable, unthreatening, and she was reluctant to leave it yet.

The silence seemed to wrap around them, caress them. Christine felt a sort of irony about being so situated—being enfolded in his arms in order to feel secure from an errant, fleeting nightmare, when only a week past he himself had been the very real nightmare she had been madly desperate to avoid, desperate for any kind of protection which would keep him away. It seemed incurably ancient now, carrying on its dark underbelly a pang of nostalgia so sharp it nearly brought tears to her eyes. She had thought herself so dreadfully happy—how naïve she had been! Slightly distressed, distracted, at times half-mad with fear and worry, but happy—or, at any rate, looking blithely forward to the promise of happiness. _So blissfully ignorant,_ _so blindly unaware of where it would all lead,_ she thought numbly.

She never would have imagined this. She certainly never would have allowed herself to think even for a moment that that the feel of him beneath her hands could be inexplicably good, that being pressed to his heart and wrapped in his embrace might be a kind of relief rather than a nameless terror.

Even now, there were lingering fibers, rapidly unraveling threads which nonetheless clung still to the great tapestry of her emotion and mind, fibers which despite their withering state still screamed for her to abandon this madness, to get away before she was consumed body and soul. That had been her chief fear in the old days, being burnt up until she was nothing but a shell of her old self, being driven mad. It was still, she supposed, a vague possibility, but it seemed far more improbable now than it had months or even weeks ago.

Erik shifted under her hands and seemed about to speak. She waited with bated breath.

The seconds stretched, taut as ribbon. Christine shivered a little with cold, and he slowly drew the covers over her shoulders. His fingers paused for a moment near the side of her neck, then passed briefly over her skin, a lingering caress. _He likes to touch me, _she thought, and the feelings accompanying this thought seemed tangled and confused. There was more silence yet before he finally spoke.

"When Giry came upon me," he said, his voice an unreadable breath, a bland whisper, "when she looked on me at the very first, I was in a traveling fair."

There was another silence.

"But it was no ordinary exhibition," he said softly, "not one where I had my own tent to show off my talents. There was a tent, but it was not mine. Inside, there was a cage, barely large enough for a man to stand in, and inside of it, there I sat, clad in nothing but rags and my own filth."

It took a few moments for this to penetrate her mind, to realize what he was telling her. Her hands clenched around his nightshirt, and she buried her mouth in it to stop herself from making a sound.

"Is it too much?" he asked quickly. "Would you prefer I not go on?"

"No," she whispered. "No, it's all right." A small, morbid part of her wanted to hear it, wanted to hear the whole tale spill from his lips. She was dreadfully curious.

"Very well," he said gently. "I was thirty-one, if I remember it correctly. It hadn't been this way in other places. I had made money before, singing and doing my ventriloquist acts, showing off card tricks, stupid illusions that boggled the minds of average citizens. It had pleased me to do this. I had been in camps where no-one asked about my mask, where no-one cared if I hid half my face. It was part of my mystery, part of my sorcerer's reputation. But this particular camp…the gypsies there were interested in a much more lucrative profit. They stumbled upon me one night as I slept in the open air, unaware of their presence. One of the first things they did, after I was trussed up like a turkey, was to look beneath the silken strip of cloth which hid my shame. Surmising that this would fetch them a fair price in many a town, they quickly decided to keep me, rather than kill me or sell me. I told them of my talents; I told them of my feats—it didn't matter. They would not be dissuaded, and so began my imprisonment. I had been on the road to Paris, but had never dreamed I'd see it from between the gaps of stinking iron bars." There was little emotion in his voice, little enough so that a casual observer might think he felt nothing at all; attention to his choice of words, however, to the scraps of feeling drifting through his dreadful narrative, seemed to indicate that it was a numb sort of emotion, like scar tissue which felt only echoes of a formerly agonizing sensation.

Christine's eyes were closed so firmly she saw stars, half-thinking that if she concentrated her will sufficiently, there was a vague possibility that she might make the horrors of the past melt into nothing but passing shadows in the night. Her hands trembled uncontrollably, and she unwittingly drew closer to him still. It was at that moment that she noticed his body seeming to stiffen almost imperceptibly, his fingers hovering gingerly rather than handle her outright, as though he were vaguely unwilling to touch or be touched while he told of this living nightmare of his own.

She smoothed his nightshirt—merely something to do with her quivering hands—and to her surprise he relaxed a little, a small sigh slipping from his lips.

This was gratifying, she realized, in a small, odd way—the idea that she could exercise influence of any kind over emotions connected to his deep, sprawling dark past. She felt buoyed, almost hopeful.

"At length," he said in a low voice, "Giry was there. She was part of the rabble which came to gawk, although while other faces were twisted in repugnance or outright bawdy laughter, her face was pinched and drawn, as though she were disgusted more with my surroundings than with me. I can't remember if she lingered, or how long she was there at all; I paid her little heed, for she was of hardly any consequence to me—merely the fact that she had not acted like the others was not sufficient to hold my interest. I remembered her later only because I recognized the shape of her face when I saw her at the Opera, that lean, long face and the jaw that jutted ever so slightly.

"At any rate, when they'd all gone, I begged to be let out, if only for a moment. I had had enough of sitting in the wet, soiled straw, and was cramped and stooped nearly beyond the limits of my endurance; the cage was not quite wide enough for me to stretch my legs, nor was it high enough for me to stand up to my full height—you know that I am a tall man. The man counting coins laughed at me and spit dismissively in my direction, and told me that if I needed to piss—forgive me, Christine, I forgot for a moment who I was speaking to—I could do it on the floor, for it had served me well enough before. I could no longer stand it. I waited—waited until he was close to me, close to the bars—are you sure you wish to hear it, Christine? Very well—I put my hands around his throat, crushed the bones of his neck against the iron of my prison—forgive me, darling, I get a bit carried away when I speak of such things—and took the keys from his filthy pocket, unlocked my cage. Someone saw—someone shouted, and then there was an uproar, and I knew I was a dead man. Where could I hide? I ran blindly, not caring where I went, only drinking in the delicious outside air and glorying in my freedom, short-lived though it might be. I went a little mad, then, thinking that if I did not get myself away quickly enough, I should never be free again. It gave me fresh speed, fresh strength. I found a grate—I moved it, I slipped inside, not caring how dirty it was beneath—and I hid in the slimy underbelly of Paris for hours before I dared to explore my surroundings. There was an entire world beneath, in the sewers—a dripping world, an echoing world. I waited until the dead of night and came up into the shadows of the streets, my very heart beating a tattoo of warning to the world around me, screaming that I should be caught at any moment, looking like an animal in my soiled, stinking rags and uncovered face. I managed to waylay a passer-by in an alley—I stole his clothes, his shoes. I bathed in the river as much as I could to wash the stink away from me, and I used part of the man's shirt to fashion a new covering for my face. I looked rather like a beggar, but at least I didn't look like an ape. When that was done, I slept beneath a bush in the Bois, with a knife in my hand that I had stolen from the gypsy who held me captive. I didn't kill the man whose clothes I stole—you needn't worry for it. I never kill anyone needlessly, you ought to know that. I merely knocked him unconscious, rendered him limp as the rags which had hung from my emaciated frame.

"When morning came, I wandered for a while, careful to avoid even the outskirts of the fair. There was work to be had at the building site for the new Opera; this was why I had been en route to Paris from the first. I looked a rather disreputable sight, but who were they to argue with an extra hand? They hired me; I disappointed no-one, and made enough money to live on. They didn't know about the secret ways I built at night when no-one else was working, how I carved out a house for myself beneath the ground. When it was done, when the Opera stretched to the sky, I wondered how to get more work. Opportunity soon presented itself in the form of extortion. I had built so many secret passages through the place that I saw things which no-one else saw. I wrote letters of blackmail, letters that threatened to expose the guilty party of this or that unless they put the money in a certain place at a certain time. I made sure never to be seen. I soon realized that the manager of the place was the most susceptible of all to keeping scandals secret; I soon confined my efforts to him. In time, blackmail was no longer needed; merely the suggestion that strange forces were at work proved enough to coax a substantial amount of money from his pocket—and the pockets of others who came after him—like clockwork every month. This was how I made my living; it was a crude method, but an effective one. And now, dear," he sighed, "you know the full tale. There's no more to tell, aside from needless details which would alternately shock and bore your pretty ears."

Christine felt for his good cheek and awkwardly kissed it. His fingers slid along her face. "Are you troubled?" he asked softly. "Did it hurt you, to hear it?"

"A little," she said shakily. "I—"

"What?" he queried.

"Such atrocious, petty cruelties," she whispered. "How is it that men are capable of such acts? I wasn't speaking of you, for as dreadful as such a killing was, it could…could arguably be justified—I was speaking of the cage, of the open, awful display. How can it be that such things are allowed?"

"Perhaps one day mankind will rise above such things," he said, "but the world is still in a rather low and dirty state as far as compassion and base humanity extends." His warm breath brushed past her cheek. There was another stretching, winding silence, while he ran his fingers over her jaw, lightly as spider's-legs.

"Tell me again," he said huskily, "that you love me."

There was a hard, cold lump in her throat. She did her best to swallow it. The words still felt strange. "I love you," she whispered awkwardly. "I lo…love—"

His mouth descended hotly on hers, shocking pleasure which threatened to wholly overwhelm her good sense.

Her fingers became tangled in his sparse hair, embracing this rather unexpected turn of events, but then she panicked suddenly, terrified of that greedy beast between his legs which had pierced her to the hilt and unceremoniously stripped away her maidenhead. She thought she felt it through his nightshirt, against her thigh, warm and stiff and ready, and she broke away. "Forgive me," she gasped. "I can't. Not now. Perhaps…perhaps another time…" The words sounded stupid. She tried to swallow them back, but knew it was useless. "Don't think me horrid. I can't. Not so soon. I've heard it becomes better, with time…" Her face was hot.

He said nothing. His hands were on her waist, and he seemed to be somehow gathering his breath, gathering all the little bits of himself together.

"You regard me still with a fair amount of loathing, do you not?" he said in that raw, pained voice. "Especially after—"

"No, no," she gasped out. "It wasn't the story. I—"

"I was not speaking of my dismal narrative," he said softly. "Rather referring to our recent…conjugation."

Christine took her hands away from his shoulders. He grasped her fingers in his.

"I haven't any desire to speak about it," she said blandly.

"I could not help it," he said hoarsely, desperately. "I had you, at last, in my arms. All I could think was _Mine, mine,_ and it all became a hot, mad blur of pleasure through which I was barely conscious of my own deeds, my own acts." His breath was heavier now than it had been before. She moved herself back a little.

"It shan't happen that way again," he said, his voice strained and anxious. "You have Erik's word on that."

"My life has been turned upside-down," she whispered, trying with all her might to keep her burning tears unshed. "Upended on its head. I am still endeavoring to acclimate myself to my new circumstances at all. This is but one fresh facet which will take a short while, if not a long one, to embrace. You must give me sufficient time to become accustomed to it. To-night—or this morning, which ever it is—I would prefer not to experience it again, for the moment. You must believe me when I say it isn't to hurt you."

He was silent for a moment, and then his fingers drifted over her cheek, hot and hovering.

"It does not matter," he said bluntly. "There are, of course…other ways to tame the beast." He grasped her hand in his, and slowly brought it to rest against that place which she had been trying with all her might to avoid. She struggled a little, curling her fingers into a fist so that she would not have to touch it, even through the cloth of his nightshirt.

"_Cher,_" he said, his voice thick with desire but oddly hypnotic, sounding as though he were trying to soothe her, "_cher,_ man's organ is rather…astonishingly susceptible to the touch of a hand. If you were to…"

"It isn't proper," she gasped out, finally wrenching her hand back. "Is it?" Her voice sounded weakly in her own ears.

"I should think a great deal of previously forbidden acts might be freshly allowed after the bonds of matrimony have been sealed," he rejoined, his voice sounding barely contained again. "Would you have touched _him,_ if he had asked you to?"

The color shot up in her cheeks, and she felt a rush of anger. "I don't love him…Raoul…any more," she said, deliberately saying her former paramour's name at last, rather than simply _he _or _him_. She had avoided it so painstakingly—on the basis that she had been dreadfully afraid of offending Erik, which seemed stupid beyond words now—that it was a marvelous relief to blurt it aloud. It gave her a fresh sense of self, of indignation, despite the fact that her voice dropped to a whisper without her realizing it. "I'm not wed to him, but to you. He has no place in this."

"Still," Erik said, his voice soft and slightly malevolent, his breath floating against her face, "it bears contemplating. Perhaps things you think improper to do with me would not have seemed quite so improper had you chosen to wed your pretty weakling instead."

"Why?" she bit out between tears, shoving herself backwards, away from him. She felt hot with anger and humiliation, almost more than she could bear. "Why do you persist in these ridiculous intimations? They serve no purpose—they hurt me." Were his fruitless accusations a kind of unconscious revenge, she wondered, for ever having spurned him at all?

"It hardly matters, at any rate," he said at last between his teeth. "There are still other ways of taming the beast—one, in particular, with which I am embarrassingly well-acquainted."

She hadn't the slightest idea what he meant by this. As he left the bed, however, it suddenly hit her like the crack of a whip, something she had once heard about in a sermon in her younger days, when she still attended church. The realization of what he meant to do made her feel slightly sick, and humiliated her still further.

She sat up, and struck a match. The lamp came to life, and he stopped where he stood.

He was unnaturally still. His face was expressionless, but his hooded eyes moved over her in a way that made her breasts tingle. "You look well in that negligée," he said, his voice unreadable, but slithering over her like an invisible hand. "You might tempt a man."

He himself was not particularly tempting in all his hideously exposed facial glory, not to mention clad in a night-shirt which did not quite cover his calves. He looked vaguely ridiculous. She was rather taken aback by the unbidden thought that he might look more tempting in nothing at all.

"I have had enough of this," he muttered, and moved to go.

"Wait," she whispered.

He stopped again, his hand resting on the door-frame.

"You were right," she said with a little difficulty.

"Concerning?" he asked rather warily.

"Concerning…concerning changes in propriety," she said. The words bent around her tongue awkwardly, and she hated to say them. "It's simply that it seemed…unnatural. But not nearly so wicked or unnatural as what you hinted you might…" She could not continue.

His mouth twisted further into a frighteningly mirthless little smile, something almost mocking. She looked away from him, feeling numb and stupid.

"That particular act of which I spoke, the latter act which I was just leaving to commence—which you in your sweetly innocent naïveté can hardly bear to contemplate," he said silkily, sardonically, "rescued more than one tender feminine virtue, including your own—once upon more times than you would ever care to know—from my perverse inclinations. It is, of course, a matter of opinion, but one might be far more swiftly persuaded to term self-pleasuring a saving grace than an aberrant sin." He moved his hand to the door-knob, but did not turn it.

She could not look at him. She thought if she looked at him, she might wither into dust. She saw him shift out of the corner of her eye.

"Well?" he queried. He seemed faintly annoyed at her lack of a response.

Was it possible, she wondered, that he enjoyed provoking her, enjoyed eliciting these verbal battles? Did it give him some kind of perverse satisfaction? She abruptly felt quite annoyed herself.

"Most say," she said icily, knowing she was treading on precarious ground, but caring more about winning the upper hand at the moment, "that it turns people into idiots." She glanced at him, and was slightly satisfied to see his eyes narrow. "Besides," she said, some of her bravado slipping, "calling it a saving grace hardly excuses the act itself."

"Spare me your childish religious platitudes, _fille_," he snapped. "Women haven't the faintest conception of what it is to be a man, to have one's appetites constantly roaring to be set free, to always be exercising a rigid, tight control over oneself in order to keep from becoming a raging animal! It isn't always so for some, perhaps, but when one lives a life entirely without affection, without intimacy or human contact of any kind, it becomes unbearable. The strain is almost too much to withstand."

She clenched her hands around the sheets.

"And then," he said in a quieter, slightly hissing voice, "when one is placed in a situation where he can finally release those appetites, finally have a legitimate, sanctioned outlet for his longings, to be denied by the very same person who only recently acquiesced to his desires is the worst of all."

"Are you asking me to pity you?" she whispered, finally turning to look at him directly. Her indignation had trumped her more gentle nature entirely. "You seem to have perfected feeling sorry for yourself. You take hardly any thought for my feelings—you never have—and then you dare to hold _me_ responsible for your own choices—"

"Christine," he said between his teeth, coming very close to her, "take care. I am hanging by a slim thread."

She blanched, but didn't move.

His hand gripped the end-table. "A beautiful woman can drive a man mad," he breathed, his voice shuddering, his body seeming to shrink a little. "Mad with longing—so mad that it can very nearly blind him to his more…rational senses."

Christine could not fathom why she suddenly felt a familiar tingle between her legs. She had a shivering feeling of goose-flesh on her shoulders, on her back and breasts. Her body seemed unbearably warm.

Was it merely flattery which made her thus? The idea of how intoxicating he found her, the notion of this strange power she might exercise over him, as she had imagined all along?

"If only you had the faintest notion of it—" he whispered, "you might, perhaps, be able to forgive my brash impulses."

She could not move. Control over her own muscles seemed a delicate impossibility. All her anger seemed to melt, try as she would to hold it in place.

Stories floated through her mind, stories from the dormitory girls. _It was dreadful at first,_ she remembered one of them saying, _so dreadful I thought I should never want to do it again, but…_

_Soon you can't live without it,_ another had finished—Seline had been her name. _A good romp is more brilliantly heady than cheap wine. And just try doing it after an argument! God, there's nothing like it._

Her cheeks flushed, and her thighs slowly parted, covered as they were by the chemise. It was still an unmistakable gesture. She could hardly believe herself, could hardly feel herself inside her own body, as if it had a will entirely its own.

His breath was shuddery again, coming from a half-open mouth and heaving chest. His eyes glimmered with desire, hot and tangible.

"If you come to me now," she whispered desperately, beginning to feel a hot rush of panic again, "do be sure to do it gently." She prayed she wouldn't regret this.

He stepped forward, and she leaned back. "Gently," she said quickly.

"Gently," he repeated, his breath coming fast. He lifted his hands toward her. Suddenly he stopped. "The light?" he asked vaguely.

"Out," she whispered. "Please." To perform this act while the room was lit seemed somehow embarrassing, too exposing.

He fumbled with it and blew the flickering flame into darkness. "Christine," he whispered, a prayer which turned into a groan. "I love you, you darling little fool. I can't bear it."

Her arms came tentatively up for him, and their mouths met, lips wet with each other, devouring. Christine felt limp and taut by turns, riding an unexpectedly ardent wave of desire. His words came back to her—_mine—_and she felt them like the edge of a delicious sword. _I belong to him,_ she thought, _and he belongs to me. _It was a shocking, strange thought, overtaking her completely.

Their hands and lips moved over each other, sliding under clothing and slipping upon skin. Perhaps, Christine thought, the girl Seline had been right when she had hinted at the pleasure of reconciling after an argument.

Her fingers drifted unwittingly across his hot, stiff member, eliciting a hissing gasp from between his teeth, and she felt utterly awkward then. She quickly withdrew her hand, choosing instead to let it hover near his round chest. The hairs tickled her skin through the opening in his nightshirt, and she ran her fingers through them.

He shivered violently. "Erik would die for you," he muttered against her throat, making a little shock of delight race up her thighs. He put his burning hand between her legs, cupped her womanhood in his palm and buried his fingers in the dark curly hair. It was an experimental, awkward clutch, but she nearly lost her head completely. "Erik," she gasped, feeling a gush of involuntary arousal which clung to his fingers, sticky, clear fluid. His hand tightened around her.

"I see now, I think," he breathed, "I must woo my bride, woo her sweetly if she is to be a willing participant in the dance of bodies." He ran his free hand down her chin and throat, and she writhed against him, making a little moan of breath come from somewhere deep. "Goddess," he groaned, and she met his mouth again, even accepting his seeking, searching tongue. If this was not wicked, she could think of nothing that was.

Her thighs parted for him almost involuntarily. He fumbled for a moment before pushing himself forward, proceeding much more slowly than the first time, as though he were making a valiant attempt to keep himself in check. Her body stretched a little to accommodate him, made simpler now by the slippery moisture coating her insides, the byproduct of her body's inexplicable excitement. His entry burned only a little, scraping briefly against the still-sore remnants of her maidenhead, but the pain was dull rather than sharp, its edges softened by slick, sliding ardency.

He began his rhythm then—perhaps not as gently as he had indicated in his intent—but nevertheless, at the cusp of each spearhead, she felt little lightning-bolts of pleasure mixed with the lingering dull pain. They came at her again and again, racing up her body like tiny shocks and beginning to build momentum. Christine began to keenly realize how it was that this might be enjoyed, how this could quite possibly become something to look blissfully forward to rather than loathe.

His gasps wafted against her ear, and her fingernails dug lightly into his back. She felt impaled upon a spike of pleasure and pain, something which held a gathering promise of deliciousness.

"_Yesss_," he whispered, and then gave a kind of hitched groan, his movements suddenly jerky and arrhythmic. He pressed himself against her, gripping her thighs, and then gave a long sigh.

There was a lingering silence for a few moments. "Better?" he whispered hoarsely.

"Oh, yes," she sighed. And it had been better than the first, there was no doubt about that—but on another level entirely, she felt a little like a marionette whose strings had been cut in the midst of a performance, as though there had been more, more beyond imagining.

She did not say this aloud. She tried to quiet the murmurings of her body, tried not to let herself be bothered by the dangling feeling of their tryst's swift end. There was a kind of terrible irony, she thought, to the fact that the first time had seemed an eternity, full of pain and embarrassment—but this time, wrapped in the heady warmth of desire, it had taken hardly any time at all, and in fact had seemed to end far too soon.

He relaxed, sliding his fingers against a few stray strands of her hair. His sex felt strangely soft and flaccid as it slipped from her body, rather than hard and stiff. She knew next to nothing about these sorts of things, and it surprised her a little, having hardly noticed it the first time. She didn't dare ask him about it, however, for fear of sounding impossibly ignorant.

He rolled over onto his back. She wanted to run her hand over his torso, wanted to touch him, but felt oddly shy.

"What does it feel like?" she murmured suddenly, and then blushed, afraid she had gone too far with questions that ought to be confined to the privacy of one's own mind, forever unanswered.

His weight shifted a little on the bed. She wondered if she had embarrassed him.

"Picture a catapult," he said after a long, awkward moment. "Picture it being under unbelievably delicious strain, a kind of keen agony as its rope becomes tauter and tauter, and then picture it springing loose, its burden vaulting into the sky—and then, no longer held up by outside forces, collapsing back exhaustedly, its work finished until the fighters decide to load it with another missile—which might take minutes, or hours."

She felt vaguely mortified by this, but only a little confused. She had seen pictures of catapults, and after recollecting his own behavior before, during and after, felt more or less adequately informed by his strange metaphoric description.

"It's something that can't be explained in bald, plain language," he said, his breath still heavy, but with the aftermath of exertion. "Not well, at any rate."

"It's all right," she said uncomfortably. "I believe I understand." Was it possible, she wondered, to experience something akin to such explosive release herself?

He paused. "I won't ask you about your own sensations," he said blandly. "At least, not yet."

"They seem to be budding, awakening," she said, and then felt heartily embarrassed.

"Ah," he said, his voice soft.

They said nothing for a little while. "You ought to have your rest," he said at last, his voice quiet, strangely subdued. "I'm afraid I've been a bit of a beast, myself. Sleep as long as you please tomorrow—as long as you please, do you hear? I shan't wake you for anything short of the police, or a fire."

Christine felt too tired to respond to this, almost too tired to smile. She felt sleep claiming her, pulling her into the pillow and drifting at the corners of her eyes, inexorably down, down, until it wrapped her in its soothing grasp at last.


	7. Chapter VI: Dread

**A/N: This chapter had to undergo several serious rewrites from the top down, which is one of the reasons it took so long to post (and I did promise one wonderful reader in particular that it would be up a **_**lot**_** sooner—and I mean a **_**lot**_**—so I really, really apologize for that). Life got spectacularly in the way, as it tends to do, and apart from that, I just had an incredibly difficult time with this chapter, for some reason—there was a lot of awkward/slightly boring stuff to slog through at first. I kept second-guessing myself at almost every turn, and whenever I found myself making progress, I would re-read and totally scrap/rewrite a big part of the scene I had just written (sort of a two steps forward, one step back sort of thing—progress, incidentally, went at a snail's-pace). Even now, I'm not convinced it's up to par.  
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**At some point, though, I just realized that if I kept being a **_**total**_** perfectionist, it was never going to get posted, and I didn't want you to have to keep waiting (you've already been waiting for almost three months, after all)! I finally just had to say "Good enough" and post the darn thing—I did cut it off a bit shorter than I originally intended. The 2,000 or so words that I cut from this chapter are going to end up in the next chapter—they still need to be worked over, so I just made the decision to shift them to the next chapter instead of taking even longer to give you this chapter. Apologies for this chapter subsequently having a kind of "filler" nature-the bulk of it is made up of Christine's private reflections, and some might find it quite boring, but I promise the next chapter will be much more...ah...interesting.  
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* * *

**

Christine sleepily heard a grandfather clock chiming ten, as light filtered through her eyelids, red and hazy. She rolled over, her hand finding nothing but cold, rumpled sheets. She groped for a moment, and then opened her eyes.

When she suddenly realized with certainty how late in the morning it was, she was briefly chagrined. She was generally accustomed to rising quite early, but for the exhausting events of the past few days—as Erik was nowhere to be seen, she wondered if he himself had been accustomed to it as well, despite the fact that living underground would hardly have conditioned him to the rising of the sun.

She remembered his promise not to wake her, but even so, she was mildly irked at being left alone without a word. Still, it was not unreasonable for him to have done so. Even at his most poetic, she sorely doubted him to be the kind of man who might watch a sleeping woman for hours at a time.

Imagining him sitting as still as a cat on the bed and staring at her slumbering form for any length of time proved to be and in of itself highly unnerving, and Christine hurriedly sat up, sliding her legs out of bed and gingerly putting her bare toes on the cold wooden floor.

The full portent of what had occurred last night came back to her in the form of the still-dull ache both around her thighs and between them, along with stiff muscles from being cramped in the carriage and having had to walk much further than she had been accustomed for a long time. She stretched painfully, flexing and bending her limbs as though she were still making ready to go onstage to dance as a member of the ballet _corps._

She abruptly caught sight of a hastily scrawled note on her night-stand, and picked it up gingerly, as though she were handling a snake. The familiar hand it was written in brought back far too many jolting memories, which she didn't care to dwell on just then—and indeed, tried her level best not to.

_My dear,_

_Should your own clothes prove insufficient, you will find a supply in the wardrobe which ought to be an adequate supplement for the present—although you must excuse any changes in fashion which might have occurred during the span of one or two years. I am unsure as to whether you have already discovered the contents of the wardrobe for yourself, but thought it prudent to inform you, in the event that you were unaware. _

_Do not be alarmed if I am nowhere in the house when you awake; I plan to go to town to procure groceries, as the cupboards are of course alarmingly bare. _

_In the event that I am gone, I must request that you stay inside the house—until we are more firmly established, I would prefer that you not stray outside, even close to its walls, for even a moment. My concern is purely for your welfare. You will not find the front door locked, as I have made the decision to trust you implicitly. Do not disappoint me._

_I remain,_

_Yours,_

_E._

Christine was mildly disgusted at this turn of events. "Implicit" trust or not, the request—more appropriately, the _insistence_—that she stay inside the house should he be absent from it seemed a rather eerie echo of his past jealous attempts to control her actions, as though she were an automaton with no will of her own. She was terribly unsure as to whether such a present gesture was yet another indication of his dreadfully possessive nature, or if it indeed merely indicated a genuine worry. Was he truly "concerned" for her welfare, as he had attempted to insinuate, or was he merely concerned that she would escape from him, perhaps attach herself to another man? Did such an idea worry him so, after she had submitted to him in every way imaginable? She had fled with him, consented to a marriage performed by a religious cleric, given herself up to his—

This last thought made her blush in a way she was glad no-one could see. A glance at herself in the mirror, however, revealing the slow, steady spread of color in her cheeks, seemed to condemn her in front of the entire room of silent, staring objects—as though they were a kind of wooden tribunal, bound to try her for her deeds.

_I took a murderer into my arms,_ she thought, and as she closed her eyes, a kind of shudder passed through her. _I let him fill me with his body, I let him plumb me as though I were the parched ground and he were the long rod seeking water in its depths, untapped, untold. _

Did God, she wondered dully, feel the same sort of wrathful disapproval about willingly becoming one with an unapologetic taker of human life as He did about the taking of human life itself?

A little chill passed over her. _Silly thoughts,_ she said to herself with clenched teeth, _silly, stupid thoughts. Pointless, useless. None of us will know until judgment-day._ Erik had said so himself, and she believed him.

"Forgive me," she whispered to the air, to the unseen God, even so. "Forgive me for what I have done, if indeed it was at all a sin in Thine eyes, and for all that will happen in future."

Privately, she thought that God might rather look kindly on the dutiful upholding of her marriage vows, and her willing acceptance of a tortured soul, in lieu of casting a steely eye on her fleshly passions with a hunted man—but it was, after all, better to be safe than to be sorry.

Her bare arms prickled, her flesh quivering a little. She stretched out her fingers, brushing them against the smooth wooden knob of the armoire, opening its creaking doors to see what lay inside. She pulled out a gauzy dressing-gown almost at once, marveling at how completely useless it seemed—the material itself was flimsy, almost transparent. Either of the purposes one would generally assume a woman's dressing-gown might serve—protecting against the cool air or providing a modest covering—could hardly be served at all by this piece of frippery. She tossed it aside, feeling more and more annoyed.

Not bothering to search further within the wardrobe for similarly disappointing articles of clothing, she reverted to looking through her valise for a suitable outfit—although, she thought grimly, he had been somewhat correct in his assumption that the clothes she had seen fit to bring were hardly the kind she liked wearing best. Her own clothes were anything but the elegant costumes and borrowed gowns she had frequently worn about the Opera—Mamma had not been particularly rich, and Christine had spent much of her own money to provide for her, particularly where a nearly constant caretaker was concerned.

She assumed what remained of her salary would be sent to the old woman—since Mamma resided at the address known to the management as being Christine's—but she felt a sudden pang, wishing she had been slower to action, wishing she had taken the time to make utterly sure that Mamma Valerius' needs were seen to entirely. Oh, why had she not written _that_ in her letter to Raoul? _He_ surely would have seen that Mamma lived comfortably off for the rest of her days, had Christine requested it. Such a thing had not even crossed her mind when she had written the letters.

Of course, had she actually requested such a thing—which should have made it disturbingly clear that she herself would be in no position to provide for the old woman, or too far removed to do so—it might have aroused Raoul's suspicions. She wondered if he would guess the truth of the matter even so, if poor, dear Meg might perhaps let something slip to the wrong person, if it would reach Raoul's ears, and—

She could not think of it. She _would _not.

Besides, even if Raoul suspected the truth, even if he somehow came to know it for a surety, he'd hardly be able to trace them here. No-one had seen the two of them leave Paris together at all, except the cab driver—and what were the odds of Raoul being able to track down that very driver, being able to get him to remember the young lady on the arm of a strange, foreboding man? It was not possible. Even if he could—it was laughable to assume that the driver would recall the precise destination of those two particular passengers, when he surely had so many, and despite the fact that the inn-keeper's wife in Éperon had known that they were traveling to Culot…oh, _why_ had Erik let that slip?...even so, Raoul would never be able to follow all the leads. It was impossible—improbable even to assume that he or the police should learn anything of the affair at all. At any rate, this train of thought served no purpose but to confuse and frighten her. She tried with all her might to abandon it as quickly as possible.

Taking her time, as there was no hurry, she made her toilet and dressed in her plain, ordinary clothes—the same kind she had worn to the Opera, the day she went to seek him out—and was rather appalled when she saw, upon closer inspection, the dark circles under her eyes in the mirror. It seemed unfortunate that there was nothing she could do about that at the moment, but she pinched at her pale face to give it a little more color, and smoothed her furrowed forehead with her hands, trying to relax her wan, strained features as much as possible. How she missed the old days, when she was always blushing and happy with the attention from admirers and friends, and had never wanted for color in her cheeks or sparkle in her eyes. She had been so painfully young and naïve.

She remembered how she had tried, after that very first dreadful night and morning in his elegant grotto, to desperately cling to her old self, had tried to imagine that the universe was not crumbling about her head, had tried to imagine that all would be well, despite being the passionate object of a deceitful madman—but even in those moments of brilliant hope, on the roof with Raoul, or swirling in the grand hall during the Bal Masque, it had been utterly certain that her existence could never be as blissful as it had been before she had seen, before she had known that everything was an illusion and a lie.

"Time cannot be changed, cannot be erased, cannot be repeated," she whispered to the ghoulish reflection in the mirror.

She tugged miserably at her hair, which was badly in need of washing and brushing—it rather resembled a lion's-mane, and she didn't like the look of it at all. She fussed with her bangs, and elected to bind some of her hair up—not all, of course, as the school-marm look was all well and good when she wished to disguise herself, but served no purpose here in Erik's house.

_His house. And mine._

The thought gave her a little jolt. Of course it belonged to him legally, but for all intents and purposes, it was hers as well. She was not merely a guest, but a permanent house-mate.

Christine took a few hair-pins from her valise and went to work pinning up most of her hair, letting the rest of it dangle down her back as it usually did. Apart from the fact that there was no need to disguise herself any longer, she had no wish to hide the thick curls completely from his view, even if they were slightly lacking in luster at the moment.

Did his worship truly appeal to her vanity so keenly?

She knew that it did, no matter how she might try to deny it. It was, after all, flattering, in a strange way—the idea that he so keenly desired her, and her alone.

Her face felt hot and tingly again, and her eyes spied once more the note sitting on her end-table—a reminder of his brash insistence that she stay inside the house. A sudden awful memory sprang up in her, a memory of the last night of the Old Life, before he had let them escape.

_Buy his freedom with your love._

_Refuse me and you send…_

She pressed her knuckles into the unforgiving wood, making them yellow with pressure. "_No,_" she whispered. She would not think of that—she _must _not think it. He was no longer that tall troll from the underworld. He never had been, not really. He had, of course, possessed plenty of monstrous qualities, but even so, surely now such impulses were utterly suppressed.

Doubt caused a seizing, icy band around her throat and stomach, doubt that he really had changed at all.

She had cherished a rather foolish notion that he had begun to change the moment she had let her lips touch his. He had let them go, following The Kiss, after all…had seemed to shrink into himself, seemed to recognize the futility of further violence, the pointlessness of coercion. It had seemed to indicate the beginning of some fundamental alteration of character—or at least a return to humanity.

Even so, had it been permanent? She had seen plenty of evidence of his former frightening nature in days past—and plenty to indicate that he might, indeed, be a changed man after all. _Was_ he the same roaring, unreasonable beast at heart, or had he truly undergone—or at least, begun to undergo—a legitimate transformation? Aside from the unbearably trite notion that a single kiss might have really been the catalyst for such a thing, it was nigh impossible to believe that even her decision to flee with him, to become his wife, could have conquered his baser nature so completely in so short a time.

Did the monster lurk, still? She had a terrible inkling of it, a kind of cold, coiling dread which settled in her stomach like a lead weight.

_I mustn't think about these things,_ she whispered in her mind. _I must not dwell on what _may_ be, rather than what is. If I do, I shall go mad._

She felt dreadfully alone, all of a sudden—not to mention starving half to death. Christine fumbled with the door-knob and made her way into the hall, gratified to see how much friendlier it seemed in day-light, although there were still plenty of eerie shadows cast upon the doors to her left. Not daring to try any of them—despite her fleeting curiosity—she quickly came to the stairway and paused for a moment, listening for any sound of him.

Oh, why had he left her alone in this strange house? She had already imagined such frightful things in his absence, and more would surely follow. He might, she thought wryly, come back to find her an imbecile, driven half out of her mind by lack of company.

She was not accustomed to being alone for any lengthy period of time—she had always been surrounded by chattering, bustling people. Did he not know this—was it impossible for him to understand, having lived alone himself for so many weary years? He, at least, had been accustomed to it—but she was not in any mood to be alone to-day, and wished heartily that he had at least put off his errands until she awoke.

He had mentioned in his note that the cupboards were quite bare—even so, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen and endeavored to search them for anything to eat.

At length, after enduring the blank stares of several yawning, empty shelves behind white cupboard doors, she came across a few jars of peaches. They were sealed tightly—it was doubtful they had spoiled, even if they had been there for years. It took her a little while to find a knife; after she had done so, she pried one of the lids open greedily, feeling a sweet relief when she lifted the jar and the ambrosial nectar spilled across her tongue, the sliced fruit squishing delightfully between her teeth. Propriety was of no consequence when one was half-mad with hunger, not to mention the fact that no-one was standing about to witness such gluttony.

Her hunger satisfied, she rather gingerly made the decision to explore the house, as she would have no other occupation while he was gone.

The downstairs hall was darker than the upstairs; even so, she felt oddly drawn to it, as though a secret beckoned which she had no business knowing.

Pooh-poohing the idea—after all, she was mistress of this house, and had a perfect right to open the doors to the rooms—she tried the first one, and found it locked. This irritated her beyond expression, and also filled her with a kind of nameless horror—what could be hiding behind the door which would require it to be barred from public view?

The brief notion that she was Blue-beard's wife made her laugh with derision, but she could not shake the insipid feeling that _something_ lurked behind that door, something to which no-one but Erik was privy, and it made her cold all over. She backed away from it, trying the next one. This led to a small closet, dark and stale, with nothing inside but moths and spiders. She closed it quickly and passed over the next door in favor of the one at the end of the hall, which—to her relief and delight—turned out to be a modestly stocked library. Heading to the window at the very back of it, she pushed aside the heavy curtains and tied them up, sighing when the sun shone on her skin through the glass.

A good deal of his book collection, she noticed, were leather-bound; some were more cheaply made; still others looked as though they should fall to pieces at any moment.

Christine ran her hands across the volumes on the built-in shelves, feeling the coolness press smoothly against her fingers. She pulled one from a relatively high shelf that had no title on the spine, and began to flip through it, wondering what it could contain.

Her curiosity was soon sated. The blush began at the back of her neck and quickly spread all the way up to her cheekbones. She almost dropped it, but then reflected that she was quite safe from discovery; after all, he would likely not be back for some time.

She pulled the white sheet-cover from an elegant, comfortable-looking chair and sank into its welcoming embrace, taking her shoes off and curling her legs beneath her. Slowly opening the cover of the novel in her hands, she elected this time to start from the beginning.

* * *

Two hours later, when she had gotten halfway through, Christine felt unbearably warm. The novel was frightfully risqué, though not wholly explicit, and rather badly written to boot.

Why on earth should Erik have had such a thing in his house? He had impeccable taste—she had noted this on more than one occasion. Was it merely the ribald excitement such tawdry entertainment posed, lacking in quality or no? She was unsure—it was not her privilege or talent to exercise any sort of clairvoyance regarding his mentality—but she couldn't bear to read any more.

As Christine shoved the book back into its place on the shelf, standing on her tip-toes in order to reach it, she heard the front door open, and started in surprise. She fought down a rush of excitement and chagrin.

_Back at last,_ she thought sardonically—it had certainly taken him long enough, though she supposed, despite her loneliness, she was a little glad of the brief respite from his presence—and quickly put her shoes on to go and greet him.

She kept her steps measured, her breathing calm. As she was almost out of the hall, she was shocked to see not only Erik, but his half-brother as well. Etienne's shirt-sleeves were rolled up, revealing his bulging forearms and powerful, ropy wrists, a large sack of flour in his arms.

Staring at anybody was not Christine's general habit; despite this, she found herself looking at Etienne with a strange new awareness, a slippery almost-knowledge. He must have it too, like Erik, that hot, seeking organ—for that matter, so did Raoul, so had all men who had been properly formed. It was a startling thought, and a vaguely sobering one.

Would Raoul have clutched at her in the dark, as Erik had done? Would his lips and hands have been so awkward, so fervent?

This embarrassed her greatly, and the thought was suddenly replaced by a strange new image—Etienne's broad, calloused fingers gliding over the soft nude back and buttocks of some nameless, faceless woman (her visage blurred in Christine's imagination), who arched like a cat beneath his touch.

She tripped over her skirt, nearly falling to the floor. Etienne himself gave a little start at her newly announced presence, nearly dropping the bag of flour he held in his arms. Christine steadied herself and tried with all her might not to look as though she had been caught at something—she was not at all sure she was doing a very good job of it. "Good day," she said as calmly as she could. _No more lurid novels,_ she thought.

"Erik required the use of my horse and cart," Etienne said, apparently feeling the need to explain his presence. "Stocking cupboards is not a light affair for one man, after all—particularly when the town is two-and-a-half miles from your dwelling."

"Of course," Christine said awkwardly.

Erik gave Christine hardly more than a few glances as he and Etienne brought in dozens of sacks, paper and burlap, near to overflowing with goods—she tried not to be hurt by this, especially as she would have given all she possessed not to be noticed by him at all merely a week ago. It seemed a ridiculous thing that she should want his attention so badly now.

She did not stare any more at Etienne—that had been a short-lived bout with shameful, new-found curiosity, easily stifled. She tried not to look at Erik, either, but it was almost impossible to ignore the fluid movements of his broadly angular, leonine body as he carried in the paper sacks. Christine felt an urge building up to touch him, to feel him shiver under her hands again as he had last night in the dark.

Several minutes of strained silence followed as more supplies were brought in—no-one offered up a word. When the cart had been emptied, Etienne lingered for a moment, and then bid a stiff farewell, which Christine returned in an awkward murmur, and Erik acknowledged only with a brief, curt nod of his head.

The front door closed, banishing the sight of Etienne's retreating form. Silence fell, thick and clotting, and Christine abruptly felt as though she were swimming in clay. Her body felt sluggish, contained. Erik seemed impossibly tall and foreboding, all of a sudden.

"Hello," she said stupidly, and then bit her lip.

"_Bonjour,_" he said, his eyes flicking over her briefly. "The clothing in the wardrobe didn't please you?" he asked softly.

"Oh!" Christine felt her color rise. "I—I confess I did not look it over thoroughly," she said. "I felt more comfortable wearing my old clothes to-day."

He regarded her rather coolly; Christine thought he might have been vaguely offended, but it was impossible to tell for certain. He had, she thought sardonically, perfected the art of bland expression. Was this particular trait yet one more of the defensive habits he had learnt throughout his youth? Had he trained himself year by year, week by week, to show next to no emotion when it seemed uncalled for?

The fresh memory of his horrific tale last night penetrated her mind with abrupt force, reminding her of the circumstances under which he had lived a good deal of his life, the kind of treatment to which he had been accustomed. She drew a little closer to him—but slowly.

"I didn't like this morning," she said haltingly, "waking up to nothing but a note—I wished you had woken me. I felt so dreadfully lonely until you arrived. I'm—I'm so used, you see, to being with other people…working at the Opera, living with Mamma…"

"I did not think the matter through," he said, sounding altogether chagrined. "Forgive me." He took her hands, drawing her closer. She shivered—his own hands felt like ice.

"I am all right," she said. "I—" She paused, slightly embarrassed. She had been going to say _I missed your company,_ but had it really been _his _company she had missed? More than he, it had been Mamma, her friends, the comforting streets of Paris that she was pining for—and she was afraid, more than anything, of being caught.

"You ought to think about, perhaps, fashioning a new m…mask," she said, feeling slightly uncomfortable mentioning it. "If someone were to come here from Paris, and recognize it…"

His lip twitched, and she was afraid for a moment that she had offended him. "You are right, of course," he said smoothly, to her relief. "I know of a man in town, who is skilled at such things. Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall pay him a visit."

They were silent for a moment, and Christine felt her cheeks grow warm. "How much food is there?" she asked abruptly, sliding her hands from his and making her way into the kitchen.

"Enough to last us several weeks, at least," he said. "I also bought seeds…I thought it might please you to have some kind of small garden, with flowers and vegetables."

"Oh!" she exclaimed softly. "It's been years since I planted anything properly—my parents had a farm, when I was quite young, but he sold it after my mother died, and we went on the road, living by our voices and Pappa's violin-playing." Christine was lost in thought for a moment, missing and yet not really missing those days of bundling her small shawl about her against the cold, of sleeping in hay-lofts and on hard wooden benches inside of silent churches. "I should like very much to have a garden," she said. "It will give me some occupation, at least, and I like to feel dirt between my fingers."

She felt a cold hand rest gingerly upon her shoulder. "You look weary, almost as though you were ill," he said curtly. "I don't like it. It isn't fitting for you to have such a sickly look upon your lovely face."

Christine closed her eyes for a moment. She remembered how his presence had used to suffocate her, how it had always been difficult to breathe. A little of the feeling lingered still, and yet she craved his presence, hungered after his familiar company as one might frenziedly desire a piece of bread when starving.

"No matter," he said. "You will be quite rosy and well in short order. Erik will see to it."

"What shall I do?" she asked, slipping away from his hand. "What shall be my occupation? It's such a long walk to town, and we haven't any near neighbors of whom I am aware, except for Etienne."

"Don't talk to me about that pup," he said sullenly. "Bad enough I was forced to ask him for his horse and cart and then endure his company."

"You have not reconciled, then?" she asked, turning to face him. This seemed a silly question. Of course they had not, or Erik would not have acted so coldly towards him as they unloaded the groceries.

"Oh, he made a few half-hearted attempts at winning back my favor," Erik said with an air of disdain. "But he is jealous—I know he is jealous, and he could not hide it from me, no matter how he tried."

Christine was about to gently suggest that perhaps he did not give Etienne enough credit, that perhaps such attempts at reconciliation were indeed genuine. Before the words left her mouth, however, she stopped herself, thinking it was likely that such suggestion would plunge him even deeper into sullen sulking—and that it would probably do her no favors, either.


	8. Chapter VII: Information

**A/N: My dear ones, I apologize! This chapter has been a ridiculously long time in coming, I know. Blame it on the L's, if you wish (Lilly, my nearly-three-year-old, and Lexie, my four-month-old) – heaven knows it hasn't exactly been a walk in the park dealing with those two all day long, although of course I love them with all my heart. It was an especially difficult adjustment at first because I've not only been learning how to parent more than one child for the first time, but bringing a brand-new baby home was a first for me as well (those of you who've read my profile know that Lilly had to be in the hospital for her first three months, so I was pretty much completely robbed of the entire newborn adjustment phase as far as she was concerned. Ergo, when Lexie came home with me at a mere two days old, I was overwhelmingly clueless about this tiny, helpless creature, and even more frazzled because I still had to manage a girl in her terrible twos at the same time I was discovering my new baby). At any rate, now that Lexie's a little older and things have calmed down a bit, I've begun to find small slots of time in which to write, especially since a happier baby and a calmer household means a less tired and more creative, energetic self. But you can also blame the delay of this chapter on yet another particularly nasty case of writer's block (which, in all honesty, could, again, probably be traced back to my tired body and fried brain as a result of the L's) – I literally started and trashed about fifteen to twenty different drafts of this chapter (and **_**many**_** different plots) over the past several months before I finally hit on one that I liked enough to keep.  
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**Note: I have a new Twitter account specifically for short, sweet updates on my writing progress, which should prove useful if you're experiencing an update drought and want to know what's going on. My username is little_sultana. My tweets aren't public, so if you want to follow them, just drop me a note saying you're from FFNet and I'll approve you.  
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"Brother."

He stirred softly, unwilling to come up from the depths of his thick, cocoon-like dreams.

A push on his shoulder, gentle but firm. "It's half-past ten."

There was a loud _swish_ as the curtains were flung open. He haphazardly raised a limp hand in protest over his face, shielding it from the sudden rush of daylight, red through tightly closed lids. The beginnings of a head-ache were upon him, and his tongue felt thick and dry, his teeth coated with something singularly unpleasant.

She grabbed a bottle from the small round table next to his chair. "You've been drinking."

He put a hand to his temple. "Only a bit. _Must_ you shout?"

"I am _not _shouting." She put a hand to his forehead. "It isn't like you to do this to yourself. Didn't Papa teach you anything? If he were here, he'd take a rod to your backside."

"I'm twenty-two years old," he said. "He'd likely say I'm merely becoming a man."

"A very foolish man." She threw the empty bottle into the waste-bin. "Don't let me catch you falling asleep in your chair again, especially from drink."

"Always the little mother, weren't you, Lenore?" He rose stiffly from his chair.

"I'm three years your senior," she said. "It's my duty to look after you and make certain you don't do anything stupid."

"Plenty of men drink when it suits them," he said. "It's not as though I've taken to card-playing or unsavory company—or, for that matter, as though I drink to excess."

"If you continue in this manner," she retorted, "you just might. You hardly used to touch a drop of the stuff, and now it seems that you're emptying bottles in one night. You need to find a wife. Forget about that unscrupulous little Swede from the Opera."

"It wasn't emptied in one night," he said. "It took me several nights to finish it off." The lie made him a little ill, but it was calculated to calm her, even if she looked as though she didn't quite believe him. At any rate, it wasn't as though he emptied bottles in one night on a regular basis. Not yet, at any rate.

He glanced at his desk, where _Her_ letter still lay neatly folded in a locked drawer. All _Her_ letters, for that matter, were in an immaculate pile inside, accumulated over the course of their courtship. He couldn't bring himself to burn them; they symbolized something tangible, proof of what they had borne over the past several months. Burning them would be as unthinkable as reducing a piece of his own soul to ashes.

Besides, he still held out a faint hope that she would repent of her decision in short order and appear one day on his door-step to fling herself into his arms, murmuring with her lips against his ear that it had been a case of nerves, a spectacular mistake. He was not vain; he was in a precarious state of teetering between hope, idealism, and a dreadful depression. He did not love anybody else, nor did he entertain any sort of expectations of doing so in the near future. If he found a wife now, he had no doubt that he could procure one amicable enough to make marriage endurable, but he had no wish to enter into a marriage which was merely to be endured. He had cherished rather grand expectations of marriage to Christine; he had loved her with all his heart, and still clung to that love a little desperately yet, even though every day which passed him by now seemed to drain away at his stamina and his sense of worth ever further.

Mme. Valerius had provided no answers when he had visited to inquire after her former ward. She had merely mumbled tiredly about how Christine had promised to write, and did the good gentleman know that she had once been taught by an angel? "Such a lovely voice," the old woman had murmured. "So lovely. She sang at the Opera. But her angel's gone now; leastwise, that's what _she_ says. I do miss her, _monsieur._ I miss her dreadfully."

Remembering the hopeless feeling of being utterly cut off from Christine was like a dagger in his heart. How could she have been so cold as to not leave any hint of her whereabouts, even to her adopted mother? "She must have told you _something_ of where she was going," he had begged gently, but the old woman had shaken her head heavily, muttering softly to herself. Marie, the nurse who attended the elderly dame, had confirmed that nothing had been left behind which gave any clue—no forwarding address, no letter of explanation for Marie, not even a note indicating how the nurse would be paid. ("A capricious thing she's done, sir, running out on Mme. like that, especially without some means of compensating for her care—I can hardly fathom it, for she seemed like such a good girl.") He could hardly have imagined it himself, but so matters stood; in a fit of impulse, he had offered to begin paying Marie himself for the old woman's tending, if there continued to be no news of Christine. He had no especial love for Mme. Valerius, but he knew that Christine could not have borne the old dame being placed in an institution or poor-house, there to live out the remainder of her fragile days in squalor and abuse. This alone made Christine's conspicuous absence and lack of instructions regarding her "mother" increasingly mystifying and infuriating, even frightening, for it made little sense in light of her affection for the elderly woman; he felt he owed Christine this much, at least, if it happened that she was actually in some kind of danger and unable to communicate properly or at all beyond what she had already written. As it was quite impossible for him (insofar as he knew) to discern whether she was indisposed or not, he thought it better to err on the side of caution—and compassion, for quite apart from his feelings for Christine, he had always possessed a kind heart—regarding the care of Mme. Valerius.

After waiting three days, he had dropped by again, hoping against hope that Christine had fulfilled her promise to her adopted mother to write, but no letter had come. He had waited for another fortnight before visiting again, but still Marie told him there had been no correspondence. Several disappointments occurred in this fashion until—too disheartened to continue—he had stopped visiting, politely asking instead that he be notified if there were any news. That had been three weeks ago now, and still there had been nothing of which he was aware.

He had considered asking Christine's friend, little Giry, for any news, but had constantly put it off in a fit of exhaustion and ill-temper, and had subsequently nearly forgotten that he had ever intended to ask. Besides, he had reasoned, if Christine had not written to the woman who had tended her for years, why should she have written to any of her acquaintances at the Opera?

He considered this again, now, and wondered at it once more. Perhaps Christine _had_ written somebody…it might be worth asking, after all.

"Raoul," said his sister, and he was abruptly brought back to the present. "I forgot. There's a letter for you that came—" She looked at him sharply, and he immediately felt mildly embarrassed; was his sudden eagerness so transparent? "It isn't from _her_, at any rate…from some-one I've never heard of, an M. Chaubertin. Is he an associate of yours?"

Raoul took the letter from her hand. "Not that I recall," he said, hoping he did not sound quite so glum as he felt. He opened the letter boredly, vaguely noting the weight and substance of the paper; whoever the author of the letter, this was likely a man of some means.

_M. le Vicomte de Chagny,_

_You do not know me; we have never met in person. I have gathered, however, from a few reliable sources I shall not (and, in the interest of professionalism, of course cannot) name, that you are anxious for news of a certain person. Do not bother to inquire as to how I have come by this information; information, sir, is my business, and I make it my business to know every thing. I believe I may have some enticing clues for you as to the whereabouts (or, at least, the trail) of the one you seek. The information will come at a price, of course—I do not bequeath charity even to my poorest clients, and you, sir, are anything but poor._

_Do not attempt to contact me under this name; it is a pseudonym, one of many. Do not bother trying to trace me by way of police, either, as you will have little to no success in that regard. My network of informants and associates is far more vast than you can imagine; this will prove quite advantageous if you choose to do business, and disastrous should you choose to make some foolish attempt to have me found out and arrested. (Not only would you not succeed should you engage in such a ridiculous venture, but you should earn my enmity as well, a thing, sir, which would not be wise to invoke.)_

_You may well be skeptical about my connections. Do not make this mistake. I am well aware of the amour which existed between yourself and the lovely songbird of the Opera Populaire, one Christine Daaé, if I recall correctly. I am also aware that she was seen leaving Paris by hansom in the company of a strange man, and I think you may be very glad to know that I can provide you with their destination, which will perhaps aid you in your search. _

_If you choose to make use of my knowledge regarding your former fiancée, you will leave no less than 10,000 francs—notes, please, as I do not accept cheques—in an unmarked envelope on the doorstep of 117 Rue Ville and knock three times, at precisely 11 o'clock on Tuesday the 29__th__. You will have received this letter on the 23__rd__, which gives you less than one week to make up your mind. If you deposit the money in the correct location on the correct date at the correct time, and it is found to be exactly the quantity I requested, I will contact you again by letter, after which it is your affair to do with the enclosed information what you will. If you lead the police to the aforementioned location, it will gain you nothing, and will prove disastrous for you and your family, as I said. If you do nothing at all, choosing to ignore my offer, then you shall hear no more from me; I shall assume you do not want my services, and I will never attempt or agree to contact you again—even, my dear sir, if after the appointed date and time you happen to change your mind. Therefore, sir, I cannot stress enough that it is of the utmost importance that my instructions be followed with exactness should you wish to accept my services._

_Sincerely,_

_M. Chaubertin_

Raoul wanted to laugh aloud, but something about the letter chilled him—a miasma of deadly sincerity seemed to hang over it, and then there was that odd shiver which had traveled up his spine when he had read the words _in the company of a strange man_.

Somewhat against his better judgment, he showed the letter to Lenore. She drew her brows together, her nose wrinkling a little. "10,000 francs!" she exclaimed. "I think you're being played for a fool. Raoul, you don't seriously mean to follow these instructions, do you? Even if he is telling the truth—don't you realize what it means, for your little Swede to have left in the company of another man? What possible good could come to you of pursuing her?"

"Perhaps it was not of her own volition," Raoul said in a strained voice. "Perhaps she was forced to do so."

"By whom?"

Something in his stomach felt cold and leaden.

"I must find out," he said. "I must. It may be nothing, but—"

"Oh, what foolishness," snapped Lenore. "Raoul, _think!_ 10,000 francs is not _so _great a sum, not for us, but even so, we—"

Raoul stared at her. "You see, you're right!" he said. "He could have asked for far more. Which brings up the question—why didn't he?"

Lenore frowned. "What are you thinking of?"

"Lenore—if he were lying, I think he should have made far more fantastic claims, and probably have asked for a far greater sum. This man probably puts a certain price on certain sorts of information—he claims to know that Christine was seen leaving Paris with a strange man, and he claims to know where the hansom was headed, but he makes no claims of knowing the identity of the man, or her precise location at this time. If he were lying, don't you see that he would be an idiot for not making more substantial claims to bait me into giving up my money, or, for that matter, charging a good deal more than 10,000 francs for such information? He writes far too eloquently to be such a fool."

Lenore put a hand to her forehead. "Raoul, even if you are correct—which I doubt—it has been two months—"

"Lenore, this person knows _something,_ and I must follow the trail, if only to make sure that Chr—that Mlle. Daaé truly runs no danger. She was kidnapped by a madman before. He may very well have kidnapped her again. The people and the police combed those tunnels—there was never any news of a body, or an arrest. He is still at large, insofar as we know. I do not think it quite so incredible a stretch of the imagination that he—"

"Raoul," said Lenore, in a long-suffering tone, "why, then, should she have gone off with him without a struggle?"

"He threatened her with my life that night," Raoul said softly, "in that dripping, eerie place. She—" He was about to say _put her lips to his to save me,_ but could not bring himself to say it. The act had been grisly enough—the juxtaposition of her smooth skin and dark hair against the mottled, mangled flesh of a man whose nature was as gruesome and twisted as his appearance—but in addition, Christine had, he knew, done it out of far more than a desperate attempt to save Raoul's neck. She pitied the monster, pitied and—dared he think it?—on some level, worshiped the man, for his diverse talents and his perverse brilliance. Raoul had never spoken of this observation aloud, had never quite dared to bring it up, wanting whatever emotion was buried in the tunnels to remain buried.

Suddenly, brought on by this recollection, a new thought struck him. Was it not only possible that she might have left with that execrable piece of filth, but that, perhaps, she could _possibly have done it without coercion?_

No. This was a ridiculous notion, one too horrible to contemplate; he felt bile rise in his throat, and the room spun around him. Christine was not capable of leaving him for that grinning, murderous beast. Not willingly. If she _had _left with _someone _of her own free will, let it be someone else—dear God, he would have it be almost anyone else. Someone kind, someone ordinary and decent and upright of character, someone who was at least half-deserving of her affections.

And yet, to think…the dreadful paradox of it all was almost too much to bear. Would it not be the most awful parody ever conceived, to be forsaken by Christine in favor of the very demon he had nearly lost his life rescuing her from in the first place? She could not be so low as that, nor could he believe she could be mad enough to run off with a wanted murderer unless she were forced. And yet, this dreadful idea made a kind of terrible, twisted sense—the man had been her teacher, a vaguely godlike figure, the unwieldy instrument which had raised her to new heights in her career. And though she had borne a frightened, disgusted look upon her face whenever she happened to speak to Raoul about the maniac's romantic inclinations for her, of his crazed obsession, of the mad, haunted look in his eyes—Raoul had seen in her own eyes a flicker of something else, as though she secretly relished it. This, too, he had never spoken about, for fear that it had merely been his imagination.

"She would have gone with him that night," he said hollowly, "if it had meant my safety. He let us go, after she—agreed. Something appeared to alter in him; he was—touched, perhaps, by her sacrifice. But I am not so stupid as to believe it was anything but passing—he could not possibly have given her up so easily as that. My God, Lenore, _I_ couldn't have given her up as easily as that, if—"

"You think he may have threatened her with your life again if she did not leave with him?" Lenore inquired, looking at him. He nodded. "It is possible, I _suppose_—" she said, sounding as though she did not suppose it possible at all, "—but really, dear, I hardly think she would not have left some clue of such in her letter. Did you not say that she claimed to be happy and well, and utterly sure of herself?"

"He may have forced her to write it," Raoul said weakly, still wanting to cling to the idea that, if she had indeed left with the one he feared, it was not of her own volition.

"If she had truly needed your assistance, I rather think she would have managed to insert _some_ sort of plea for help without it being noticed by her captor," Lenore said softly. "And you certainly should have discovered it by now, don't you think?"

"He is damnably brilliant," Raoul muttered. "It might have been difficult to—"

"Raoul, listen to yourself!" cried Lenore, withdrawing her hand, which had rested for a moment on his shoulder. "_You _are beginning to sound like a madman! Do you not know how besides ourselves we've been, Sabine and I? We worry for you so. If only you would be yourself again and forget that ridiculous little Christine!"

"I cannot possibly be happy while this matter remains unresolved," he said tightly. "I cannot suffer her to be ensconced in terror and deceit. Can you not comprehend this? I cannot ignore her safety. I must make sure!"

Lenore closed her eyes and rubbed at her sinuses with her finger and thumb. "Raoul, if Sabine and I find that you've made off with 10,000 francs—" she said between her teeth.

"You and Sabine do not manage the finances," he retorted. "I may three years your junior and five years hers, but I am still the sole male heir, and quite old enough to be judged the man of the household."

"Then act like one!" she snapped, cuffing him roughly on the head, and angrily swept from the room before he could say another word.

* * *

Six days passed. Raoul felt himself growing increasingly skittish, always feeling as though he were being watched. He saw suspicious faces everywhere—a small, ill-favored man with a crooked back; a tall, rotund character dressed in black with a bright-red waistcoat; a youth with shifty eyes, whom he spotted quite often on the Rue Avignon; a woman, dressed in shabby clothing, wearing a floppy hat over tangled locks and bearing a greedy expression.

He was certain he was being spied upon, but could prove nothing; and he remembered well "M. Chaubertin's" warning at taking any action which would alert the police. He wished there were some other alternative, but felt he had no choice but to comply with the man's wishes if he wanted some kind of lead. Unbeknownst to Lenore or Sabine, he had already withdrawn the 10,000 francs three days prior to the appointed day and had kept the notes hidden in an envelope in a locked drawer with a false bottom.

Eleven-o' clock was very close at hand; Raoul hurried out the servants' entrance so as not to be noticed by his sisters. The Rue Ville was not far away; he elected to walk, in case Lenore had instructed the coachman not to accommodate him. At precisely eleven-o' clock, as instructed, he laid the envelope on the door-step and knocked three times.

There was no answer for several moments; he began to think Lenore had been right, that he had indeed been played for a fool. Just as he was about to snatch the envelope up and go, he heard a low, inauspicious voice from inside say, "Leave it."

"M. Chaubertin?" he inquired softly, his mouth close to the door.

"No," said the voice. "One of his associates. Leave the money. You will be contacted shortly by letter."

"Very well," said Raoul, fighting off his unease, and slowly walked away.

Later that same day, one of the house-keepers informed him that a letter had been brought by a young man who, according to the house-keeper, "looked like a chimney-sweep; it was difficult to make out his face for he was all covered from head to toe in soot, except for his hand, which was clean as a whistle. An odder thing I never saw in all my life, _monsieur._" The letter itself was free of soot, at any rate—Raoul guessed that the "chimney-sweep" had been holding the letter in his clean hand—and had the words _M. le Vicomte de Chagny_ written on it in the same hand as the previous correspondence from M. Chaubertin. He fought off a combination of eagerness and disquiet—he was desperate to know something, but now that the moment had come, he was not at all sure he wished to pursue this matter to its end. _Make sure of her safety,_ he thought over and over, _that's all you wish to do. If she is happy and well, that will be the end of it. If she is __in danger—_ His mind would not quite allow him to proceed beyond this point; quite frankly, the idea of facing his foe again made him feel a bit ill, and Raoul was not a cowardly man. The chief reason, however, that his fingers remained frozen in place on the envelope, making no move as yet to ascertain its contents, was the dreadful, paralyzing scenario he hoped against hope was merely a product of his over-active imagination, that of Christine and her freakish suitor eloping together by her own choice. _What if it were true? _If it were, he did not want to find out. He did not want to know. Knowing would drive him mad, more, if possible, than if he never ascertained her fate at all.

Pondering this for a moment, he closed his eyes, and in one swift movement, took the letter-opener from his desk and savagely sliced the envelope open, grabbing at the paper inside and not heeding the sliver of blood appearing on his left index finger. The pain was an annoyance easily cast aside; he devoured the letter's contents with his eyes as a gourmand would a sumptuous meal.

_M. le Vicomte de Chagny,_

_Greetings, sir! I am most pleased that you have chosen the most preferable route in this little ballet of secrecy, and express my delight that you appear to have a considerable amount of good sense, having made no effort to lead the police to the meeting-place, nor having shirked on time or money as far as my instructions were concerned. (I have, you see, encountered such dullards in the past, who were stupid enough to leave off a few—or a few hundred—francs from the total amount, thinking, perhaps, that I could not count; or arrived one to five minutes late—you take my meaning well enough. Needless to say, I no longer conduct business with any of these individuals.)_

_And now, to the point, sir. Your Christine was seen leaving Paris by hansom with a strange man, as I mentioned—it is notable, perhaps (and may prove vital to your search), that he was quite tall, entirely clothed in black (complete with a large-brimmed hat), and appeared, from what my associate could discern, to be unnaturally pale of complexion. Your Christine was carrying a large valise with her, and appeared to be wearing traveling garb, of an indistinct color. Her hair was bound up, but it was undoubtedly her; she was seen entering and exiting her former place of residence, and my man was able to get a good look at her face when she passed beneath a street-lamp._

_This selfsame associate, who is exceptionally keen of hearing as well as sight (and therefore you see why he is of such inestimable value to me in these sorts of matters), staggered as close to the cab as he could without giving himself away (he was, at the time, pretending to be inebriated, and prior to this had been feigning sleep in a nearby alleyway as the two persons of interest had passed him by), and was able to glean that their most pressing destination was the town of Éperon, fifty miles north of Paris. It should not be too difficult for you to travel there and glean what information you can from the residents; I have no knowledge as to whether this was their final destination, and have had far too many other infinitely interesting little diversions here in Paris and its immediately surrounding areas to go to the trouble of finding out. My network is not _so_ vast that I can deploy my associates to every corner of France, after all, even for such a deliciously puzzling intrigue as this. _

_I am of the greatest hope that this information will be of service to you. _

_Sincerely,_

_M. Chaubertin_

_

* * *

_

His pistol was in good working order. He fingered it for a moment, feeling the elaborate inlay, staring at the engraving _To My Son, from His Father the Comte de Chagny._ His father, he thought, the man who had stipulated in his will that his son should have to be married before changing his title from "Vicomte" to "Comte" (under normal circumstances, the title would simply have been inherited upon his father's death), would have told him to forget the whole matter—the virtue of a chorus girl was of little consequence to the nobility, even if she had blossomed into an operatic star. Her status was too low, her rank nonexistent—she did not even have the benefit of being "new money," an appellation which belonged to those who had amassed considerable wealth, but possessed no title.

Why was it, he wondered, that those of his class were so unbearably elite, so blinded to the plights of those who did not share their wealth or name? Even his sisters—who were fine women, despite Lenore's tendency to lose her temper, and Sabine's habit of goggling at every handsome nobleman who tipped his hat—had always disapproved of a match between himself and Christine, seeing her as a kind of immoral intruder (a life on the stage, no matter how virtuous, was always prone to gossip, particularly when ensconced in such scandal as Christine's had been), a blight on their good name.

They needn't know of his little excursion—of the real reason behind it, at least. He fully intended to feign a "return to his senses"—to pretend he had some business in the country, something to keep him suitably occupied while he "forgot" Christine. He had no doubt that his sisters would be delighted at this prospect.

M. Chaubertin had not bothered to elaborate on the circumstances of Christine's departure. Even so, Raoul began to see in his mind's-eye Christine's face, her eyes red and her cheeks streaked with exhausted tears, pictured her frantically scanning the streets for someone, anyone, who could help her, saw a long black-clad arm forcing her into the hansom, and imagined a muffled cry. His blood boiled, and his fingers clenched around his pistol, wanting so badly to hear the report of the shot and see blood blossoming on the chest of the one he hated more than the very devil himself. Oh, he had no doubt it _was _He—too many details of M. Chaubertin's description rang true for it to be coincidence. There was hardly any fear in him now; hatred made him feel very strong indeed, almost invincible. The Phantom would not fare well against bullets, would he? Even quick reflexes would be of little use against a well-placed shot.

And yet…something gave him pause. _Was _his sister right? Would Christine not have managed somehow, in her good-bye letter, to insert a plea for assistance, or given some clue as to her whereabouts, if she really felt herself endangered? Could she not have managed, perhaps, to sneak a desperate missive to a post-man once she reached her final destination? Unless she were imprisoned under-ground again—this gave Raoul such a rush of bitter, angry bile that he felt for a moment as though he would be sick. Oh, hatred was not always good…it was already beginning to eat at his soul like acid. He had not had ample time for hatred of this caliber in the tunnels beneath the Opera—it had been a stale kind of venom then, mixed with bone-weariness and the overwhelming struggle to survive. All his energy had been diverted to preserving himself and Christine, his mind frantically working some kind of way to get them both away from the madman who had trapped them. Now, however…now, he saw well how hate could destroy a man, make him as twisted in mind and soul as other men were in body and face. Was it worth it, to let it drive him to the same kind of madness which had inspired the Phantom's grisly acts?

But this was different—this sort of hatred had purpose, not simply blind, irrational vengeance. He needed it to lend him strength for a time, while he sought them out and—

Something hit him then, something he had not quite let himself dwell upon, and it made him bite at his lips and utter a low cry. It had been two months since Christine disappeared—this time would not be like the last. Perhaps—oh, it was a desperate _perhaps_—some miracle had preserved her virtue thus far, but two months—two months! It was a long time for the monster—who, he remembered, had made no secret of his passion for Christine—to keep his desires in check. Perhaps, in a twisted attempt at propriety, she had even been forced into some kind of marriage to justify such ends—Raoul closed his eyes here, and clenched his fist upon the desk. It did not matter—he might be too late for that, but he could still liberate her from such unwanted affections. _If indeed they were unwanted._

That last thought slithered into his mind like the Serpent in the Garden, and he angrily shoved his pistol into the waistband of his trousers in response.

_You ought to think of that,_ his mind whispered. _What if she is happy, of all things, with that insufferable maniac? What will you do then?_

This was preposterous—unthinkable—and yet—_what if she were happy? _It was a possibility—however remote—and it bore dwelling on, if only to make himself prepared—

He could not think on it now. Plenty of time to pain himself with those sorts of considerations later—he needed to inform his sisters of his imminent departure, plant the seed in their minds that he was going on business, make travel arrangements for—he glanced at the letter from M. Chaubertin—Éperon, wherever that might be.

* * *

**A/N: The decision to return to Raoul and tell this chapter from his point of view was a long time in coming and involved a very evolutionary struggle on the part of the plot; most early drafts of this chapter involved a bunch of sexual encounters and/or arguments/fights between Erik and Christine, but I realized after a while that it just wasn't working (at least, not at the moment)—I had to move the plot along somehow and do something different, not just let it stagnate with the same old thing chapter after chapter, and every time I tried to do it from Christine's POV, I failed miserably. There were just too many hang-ups. I even toyed with a scene from Étienne's POV where Erik grudgingly asks him for advice about women—it was a really funny scene, but again, it just ended up not working and being too random, so I scrapped it. When I finally hit on doing something from Raoul's perspective, everything just seemed to click into place—particularly after I made the decision to do the entire chapter from his perspective. (When I started with the Raoul idea, I tried to split it up and write half with Raoul, half with Christine, but that ended up not really working, either.) I remember that a great reviewer mentioned really enjoying the fact that this is "Christine's story," which definitely is what I set out to write when I started this whole tale, and also why I've tried so hard to only confine it to her POV up to this point. Doing a "meanwhile" chapter with Raoul, however, made me feel unbelievably more free and creative—so many possibilities for the plot seemed to open up once I allowed myself to do this, so I'm very glad I did. Making Raoul a major player in the upcoming plot, rather than something of a forgotten cipher (which is how he started—I literally had next to no intention of having him in any other chapters than the prologue, aside from being mentioned in Christine's reflections and conversations) really seemed to pump some badly needed life into this story, and frankly, I'm pretty excited about all the ideas that have sprung into my head as a result.**

**I doubt seriously that I'll tell the story from any other character viewpoints unless absolutely necessary for the plot—I still want this to remain largely Christine's story, and even Raoul, despite having managed to get a whole chapter all to himself, isn't going to become anything like a Kayesque counterpoint; I'm not planning on it, at any rate. We'll see what happens; my stories have always tended to take me in vastly unpredictable directions. They have a kind of fluid life of their own, and if I try to force my will on them, they fight back! (This may sound asinine and even a little crazy to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but I assure you, it does happen. You just get these feelings, as a writer, these totally unexplainable feelings, and if you follow them in the right direction, they can take you to places you never imagined. If you ignore them, you usually suffer stagnation and writer's block—or if you do manage to get something written, it's generally not up to your usual par. There's nothing schizophrenic about it; it's just part of the mystery of writing.)**

**Incidentally (in case any of you are wondering), the decision not to make Raoul's older brother Philippe a character in this tale was mainly for the reason that I felt it would introduce a far too unstable element to the plot-Philippe, I felt, would have made it his personal mission to get Raoul married off and perhaps even psychiatrically evaluated, and he wouldn't have been nearly so easily fooled as Raoul's sisters into thinking Raoul was going into the country on business (since whatever business Raoul had would likely have been his business as well, or at least of personal interest)****—****nor would he have been able to ignore the withdrawal of 10,000 francs from the family finances, since he would likely be the one controlling and managing them. Philippe has always struck me as a vastly prying individual, and as he's not present in the musical, I didn't feel a pressing need to include him in the story (despite the fact that I have included several Lerouxian elements, such as Mme. Valerius, that aren't present in the musical****—****or, in the case of ****Étienne, an entirely original character****. Those are simply to enhance the flavor. A believable representation of Philippe in this particular story would not, I believe, have added a very good flavor****—****he very likely would have been the unnecessary ingredient that spoiled the broth).  
**


	9. Chapter VIII: Reconciling

**A/N: I know, dear ones, this chapter took an unbelievably long time (almost nine months, yiiiikes alive)—like the last, it went through many, many stages before its completion, and life got spectacularly in the way yet again. I've had my hands full looking after my two rowdy little girls (my 3 ½ year-old, who is apparently becoming a moody teenager before her time, and my thirteen-month-old, who just began walking a few weeks ago—time flies) and I've been working on an online Associate's degree in Graphic Arts since January. **

**Not only that, but there's been…marital stuff. Drama. Long story. To put it bluntly and concisely, I was in a very unhealthy situation for a long time (though I constantly, stupidly attempted to delude myself into thinking otherwise), an environment of emotional and verbal (as well as some very occasional physical) abuse, and after a rather intense yet gradual wake-up call (one that's been building slowly and gaining increasing momentum over the past 4 ½ years I've been married), I have now thankfully removed myself and my girls from that situation. It's been a long six weeks – I'm back home now in the place I grew up, trying to put my life back together again and figure myself and a lot of other things out. **

**I've really started to free up my ideas about POVs in this story—it's evolving a lot, to say the least. (And a lot of the credit for that goes to you lovely people, just so you know—I value your feedback and often use it to this story's advantage.) I thoroughly enjoyed writing this chapter, every bit of it—I hope you enjoy it as well. **

* * *

The sun was just beginning to creep below the hills when Étienne washed the chalky dust of limestone from his hands, weary from a long day of chipping and chiseling designs into the stony façade of M. Romere's grand house just outside the town.

A deep, abiding cough welled up within his chest, making his ribs and shoulders and throat ache. Masons didn't last long when they were constantly around the shifting particles of stone, freed from its confines by chisel. It was why the older a man in the masonry business got, the more reasonable it was to hire apprentices to do the job, and for the man to oversee the work done by his hirelings rather than doing the work himself—but Étienne loved the work, loved to feel the stone taking shape under his palms, molding it bit by bit into the image in his head. In another few years, perhaps, he might hire an apprentice or two, but for now, he was ignoring the impulse—he had no wife and children to really pique an interest in prolonging his life, rather than shortening it by continuing to work. There was Maria, the baker's daughter, down in the village—they had long conversations, and he had watched her sometimes as she baked bread, her supple waist and hips swaying to and fro as she pounded the dough, a little flour flying up and landing on her cheeks—but nothing had ever come of it yet, and he was not certain anything ever would.

He would never admit it to his half-brother, but there _were_ days when he envied him; Erik (of all people!) knew what it was to have the sound of a soft, feminine voice in his house, the sound of a swishing skirt on the stairs. And although Étienne had never been apprised as to exactly what, if any, kinds of things took place between his sister-in-law and her husband, he had noticed on occasion that there was a spring in Erik's step that had never been there before (not, at least, that he had observed prior to his brother's marriage).

He was startled by a loud knock on his door, and brushed a little more of the dust from his shirt before answering. Speak of the devil—! "Ah," Étienne said."To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" (This was said a little sarcastically.)

"Spare me your mock genialities," Erik said sullenly. "Much as it galls me, I have something I need to ask of you."

"Surely it's a bit late to require my cart—"

"I do _not _require your cart this evening, Étienne," Erik said, and it seemed to Étienne that Erik was in as bad a temper as he had ever seen him in for some time. "I require advice, if you can give me any, provided you're not brainless enough to be of no use whatsoever."

"You seem in a rather foul mood to-night," Étienne said coolly. "Might I enquire as to why, or would that be treading upon your toes too much?"

Erik's mouth twitched, and his eyes narrowed. "Are you going to invite me in, little brother, or shall I keep to the door-step and enjoy the night air for my health?"

Étienne stepped back from the door, allowing Erik to sweep past him. "You're lucky, you know, that I put up with your whims," he remarked rather brazenly. "Others might not be so forgiving."

Erik made no reply, hanging his hat on the brass hat-stand and sitting down in a nearby chair.

"Where is your wife this evening, if you don't mind me asking?" Étienne inquired.

"At the house," Erik said brusquely. "Étienne—have you been with women?"

"What?" Étienne asked abruptly, a little taken aback.

"Women," Erik said deliberately. "Have you been with any?"

"Even if I had, why on earth should I discuss it with you?"

"Confound it, Étienne—" Erik said between his teeth. "It is not to satisfy any idle curiosity on my part, I can assure you."

Étienne lifted a chair from its resting-place and sat it down a few feet across from Erik, sitting backwards in it so that he could lean forward and rest his arms. "Fine," he said calmly. "I've been with a few. What is that to you?"

"Had you any occasion to observe their behavior, in a general sense?"

Étienne was growing tired of this. "Erik, I haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about. Get to the point."

Erik glared at him stonily for a few moments. "Christine, it seems," he said, "is angry with me, and I have not been able to glean why._"_

"Ah," he replied. "And you expect _me_ to discern the thoughts and feelings of a woman I hardly know, from half a mile's distance?"

"Don't be clever," Erik snapped. "Have you any experience with this sort of thing or not?"

Étienne rolled his eyes. "Trying to read the mind of a woman, Erik, is like trying to ask a bird why its feathers are a certain color. The bird will not understand you, and even if it did, you couldn't possibly begin to decode its response."

"Helpful as an idiot in a strait-jacket," Erik said coldly. "I might have known."

"By the way," Étienne said, "just out of that same sort of idle curiosity you yourself claim not to possess…how is she?"

Erik's icy stare could have cut through stone more quickly than any chisel. "She is in good health, although why that should be any of your concern is beyond comprehension."

"Not her health, Erik," Étienne replied. "I meant to inquire as to the state of her bed, and yours. Warm or cold?"

Erik was very still, and Étienne held his stare. This was a game he had occasionally played with himself over the years, in typical brotherly fashion, seeing how far he could goad Erik before the latter snapped. Erik, despite his frequent threats, had never done Étienne a real harm—although they had come to blows once, years ago, and it had all ended rather quickly with brusque apologies and a little strained laughter (while Etienne had wiped the blood from his nose with a kerchief and Erik had inquired after a cold steak to put on his rapidly swelling left eye).

"Have you a particular wish to prematurely end your life, Étienne?" Erik inquired, his voice as still and dangerous as an icy pond upon which a man might try his weight, only to fall through and drown in the freezing water.

Étienne's mouth twitched from trying not to smile.

"Wipe that inane grin from your face before I do it for you," Erik snapped. "I have not the slightest interest in discussing my intimate marital affairs, nor will I ever have the slightest interest in discussing them."

Étienne shrugged. "Suit yourself. You asked for my advice—"

"To put it more bluntly, I don't care to discuss my wife in a fashion which would provide you with any more lurid thoughts than those which you already possess in that puerile head of yours," Erik said coldly.

Étienne laughed aloud. "I haven't any real personal interest in that frigid queen of the North, Erik, despite what you seem to think. There are much warmer women in town who could melt my loneliness if I wanted."

Erik's expression was inscrutable, but Étienne thought he detected a hint of proud disdain on his face. "As the fox said," Erik replied sardonically, "when he could not leap high enough to procure the grapes—he declared them sour, though he had never tasted them. And _never will_," he added dangerously.

"You still think I'm jealous, don't you?" Étienne chuckled. "Well, I am, after a fashion, though not in the way you think. I thought I would be well on my way to having a few sons by now, be married to a decent woman, but Fate has never presented the opportunity. I'm wrapped up in my work, and I don't have much time for courting. Speaking of sons—she's not in a delicate condition, is she, your wife?"

A look passed across Erik's face, brief as the beat of a humming-bird's wings, that was something like vulnerability. "Not that I am aware," he said.

"Hadn't given it much thought, had you?" Étienne asked a little smugly.

Erik's eyes resumed their stoniness. "Not much."

"Wouldn't mind a few nephews, myself," Étienne said, taking great amusement in Erik's suddenly sickly expression. "They could help me with the business."

"Any nephew you might have," Erik said expressionlessly, "would not be put to work carving stone, I can assure you. Not that I have a particular disdain for the work—I quite enjoy it, for it's in my blood as well as yours—but I don't care to subject children to the danger of stonework until they're of an age to decide for themselves. Besides—"

"You didn't seriously think I was suggesting putting them to work for me as children, did you?" Étienne asked. "Now, lads of twelve or thirteen aren't quite children anymore—"

"Why in heaven's name are we discussing this?" Erik snapped suddenly. "I haven't any sons, and my wife is not in a condition to expect one, at the moment—insofar as I am aware."

"It could be that she is," Étienne said smoothly, "and hasn't told you."

Erik suddenly seemed on edge. "Do you—" He seemed to be looking somewhere beyond Étienne, his eyes a bit unfocused.

"Provided, of course, that she's allowed you to perform the act that could lead to her being in such a state," Étienne said in a low voice, and Erik's head whipped to face him, his eyes narrowed.

"I _will_ say this much, if it will quiet your insults," Erik retorted. "As far as marital duties are concerned, I have hardly any complaints."

"Hardly?" Étienne asked, trying not to grin again.

"Get that look off your face, Étienne, or I'll cut your heart out."

Étienne cleared his throat, composing his expression. "Unlikely," he said.

"If I were you," Erik said, "I would not assume that sharing a parent were grounds enough to keep me from being garroted or worse by a certain some-one who happens to be _a rather skilled assassin_."

Étienne held up his hands in mock horror. "Spare me!" he said.

"Be quiet."

"You never did have much of a sense of humor."

"Not an infantile one like yours, no."

Étienne turned the chair around and stretched out his legs, which were becoming cramped. "You're just jealous of my quick wit."

Erik looked at him coolly. "Yes, a wit with all the quickness of cold molasses. Tell me, how many times have you been struck on the head by your own chisel?"

Étienne grinned. "By God, I've _missed_ this!" he said delightedly. "You know how long it's been since we sparred like this?"

Erik's expression reminded Étienne of a dog he had once seen, an older dog who had lain on the floor trying to rest while a young puppy had bounced up and down, yipping excitedly.

"So…what exactly _are _your 'complaints'?" Étienne asked. "You can tell me, you know. I shan't blab it to the neighborhood."

"You seem in an extraordinarily good mood," Erik said stonily. "You're almost like yourself again, which is why I am trying not to be annoyed."

"I _feel _a bit like my younger self again. Goading you is far too much fun. All the pressing responsibilities of being thirty seem to have melted away for the moment." Étienne ran his fingers through his hair, which was just beginning to thin a little, and suddenly grimaced. "Though the more…unpleasant physical aspects are still present."

A ghost of a smile played upon Erik's face. "Wait fifteen more years for far more unpleasantness," he said. "When I was thirty, I still had most of my hair."

"How much do you have now?" Étienne asked uneasily.

Erik shook his head. "Not much."

"Then I suppose I'd better hurry up and marry after all, before I go nearly bald. Is that why—" Étienne jerked his head toward the dark, conspicuously glossy wig. Erik ran a hand over it, seemingly habitually, and nodded.

"What does she think of it?" Étienne asked. "Merely…for reference, that is."

"She doesn't mention it," Erik said. "She's a good girl, Christine."

"What about…" Étienne flicked a finger towards Erik's mask. Erik's face—what could be seen of it—seemed to redden just slightly for a moment before fading back to its usual pasty pallor.

"You would do well," he said coldly, "to mind your own business, Étienne."

Étienne felt a little sorry for having brought up the sore subject of his brother's face, but only a little.

"Incidentally, she doesn't mention that, either, although she did express the thought that my new mask fits my face far better than the old one ever did—and that she liked the color," Erik said—a trifle smugly.

Étienne raised an eyebrow. "Has she ever seen—"

"Confound it, Étienne, _yes_, she has. Many times, in fact. I make it a point to wear this when ever I can, but certain times necessitate its removal—"

Étienne coughed, hiding his mouth with his fist.

"Wipe that smirk from your face, guttersnipe."

"Sorry."

The grandfather-clock in the corner chimed seven, and Erik stood up with a start. "I'd best get back," he said. "She doesn't like to be alone—she frightens easily."

"Are you certain she wants you there?" Étienne asked. "I thought she was angry with you."

Erik shrugged. "We'll see," he said grimly. "Perhaps the time I've spent away without telling her where I was going will have rattled her enough that she will have forgotten all about whatever caused her to be in such an ill-favored frame of mind."

"Either that," said Étienne, "or she'll be even angrier."

Erik smirked a little. "Perhaps."

"Why the smile?"

"Private matter," Erik said. "It's none of _your_ affair."

Étienne shrugged. "Fine." He opened the door. "No more bad blood between us, then?" he asked.

Erik regarded him coolly. "Debatable."

"Which means correct."

"You're an insufferable little prig, do you know that, Étienne?"

"Touche," Étienne replied, and he thought he saw a swift twinkle in Erik's eye before his expression became closed again.

"I may need your horse and cart sometime in the next few days," he said. "Just as long as you are aware. Christine has been anxious to get some things in town."

"It's at your disposal, as usual," Étienne said. "I'm hard at work at M. Romere's, but I shan't be using it—you can drop by and borrow it whenever you like, so long as you keep it in pristine condition and don't kill the horse by dragging too many foodstuffs in the cart behind."

Erik's eyebrow twitched. "Thank you," he said coolly, getting his hat and putting it on his head. "_Au revoir, mon frère."_

Étienne smiled. _"Au revoir."_

* * *

Christine heard the chimes of the little clock in the parlor—seven—and her heart raced a little. Where _had_ he gone? Where was he at this very moment?

More to the point, why on earth should she care?

She paused in her needlework. It occurred to her, suddenly, that she could not for the life of her recall exactly _why_ she was angry with him; for the past three days she had given him naught but stony silence, and in the interim had forgotten all about whatever had triggered such cold disdain. He hadn't even bothered to try to get into her bed while suffering such treatment, which she supposed had angered her even more—he hadn't even attempted to reconcile, and she had rather been hoping—

This was silly. Christine put down her needlework, and drummed her fingers nervously together. God forbid, had he been caught? It _could _happen, though it wasn't likely—oh, God, what if he _had?_ Was she to endure the sight of his ropy, strong wrists bound tightly behind him, to endure hearing the whip-crack of the noose breaking his neck?

A panic welled up in her that seemed the very sum of all horrors, and her gut clenched painfully. She hadn't eaten very recently, or the contents of her stomach might have gone up the way they came—still, she felt an overpowering nausea as she looked again at the clock, and her vision swam a little. She felt dizzy and weak, and grasped on to the back of the _chaise longue_ for support.

She didn't care what had made her angry—she wanted him home, safe. _What I wouldn't give to hear his voice at this very moment—_

The sound of the front door opening and shutting sent a kind of shocked joy through her, followed by a sudden surge of fresh anger.

She heard him call her name, tentatively, and she felt the anger melt away, if only a little. She forced herself not to run to the main hall, but even so, her steps were quick. She stopped at the entryway to the hall, her fingers resting on the frame.

The sight of him made her feel strangely full, permeating the empty ache that had made her feel so ill. She wanted to stretch out her arms for him, wanted to crush herself against him, but she was proud yet, and she tried to regard him with the same kind of cool lack of expression that he had perfected so completely.

"Where were you?" she asked quietly, and could have kicked herself when her voice broke just a little.

He appeared to notice this betrayal of her inner emotion; almost in the time it took her to blink, he had already taken the few strides required to cross the hall to stand just in front of her. "At Étienne's," he said softly, and something in her quivered a little at the tender way he regarded her. His fingers stretched out and slid along her jaw to her chin, and she closed her eyes, entirely involuntarily; he hadn't touched her in three days, and she had not quite noticed until just now how desperately she had longed for his cool, calloused hands on her body and face.

Her eyes fluttered open again, and he tilted his head a little. "Miss me?" he asked, his voice sensuously deep with longing, his fingers sliding over the softest spots of her throat beneath her chin.

"A little," she said faintly, and then drew herself up, straightened, leaned away. "I thought you might be dead_,_" she said violently, "or worse. How _could_ you?"

He shrank a little, although she thought she detected a flash of resentment. "Do you fault me?" he demanded. "This place was like a tomb. You wouldn't speak to me—wouldn't even look me in the eye."

"I _would_ have," she said irritably, "if you had tried at all to discern my feelings instead of assuming that I should sooner or later come around to _your _point of view."

"My point of view on what, exactly?" he asked, and then she felt quite embarrassed, because, try as she might, she _still _could not remember exactly what had begun this silly quarrel. "It doesn't matter," she said. Noting the faint look of incredulousness on his brow and in his eyes, she added curtly, but softly, "I'm glad you're safe."

"One would be hard-pressed to prove it," he said tersely, brushing past her and flinging his hat and coat on a nearby chair. She opened her mouth to call his attention to this, to ask that he hang them up instead, but bit her tongue at the last moment.

"What were you doing at Étienne's?" she asked quietly.

"Talking." His back was to her as he rifled through a small drawer.

She felt the sudden urge to calm him—she could practically feel his tension in the air around her—but her pride was still up, and she stopped herself from putting her hand on his broad shoulders. Although—God, she hadn't touched them in three whole days, and three days was an _eternity _not to have slid her palms across those strong, hard—

_Get hold of yourself. Now._ She shivered, and tried to keep calm, but she found herself standing a little closer to him. She could feel his scent in her nostrils from where she stood, and it made her feel a little dizzy.

"Erik—?"

He turned.

She could feel the flush in her cheeks, could hear the slight tremor in her voice. "What are you looking for?"

He glanced back at the drawer, then back at her. "Nothing in particular," he said, and she had an inkling that it had been merely something for him to do with his hands, to occupy his thoughts.

She swallowed, and said, "You haven't had dinner."

"Hang dinner," he said shortly. "I'm not hungry."

Oh, this man whose moods were coarse and unpredictable like a strong wind, and as easily tipped as a carelessly balanced scale—she loved him dreadfully now, effortlessly, it seemed, after those first few awkward days and weeks. She had struggled then, trying to fit her love with Erik, like forcing a square peg through a round hole, trying to fill the shoes of wife and lover and acclimate herself to her new circumstance. Amazing, really, the ease with which she loved him now, even when he made her angry—bad-tempered or not, he was _hers,_ entirely hers, and she had little to no qualms about admitting to herself that she rather desperately adored him in spite of everything else that might give her pause.

"What are you smiling at?" he snapped, and turned back to the drawer.

"Nothing," she said. "Why must you be in such a foul temper? You seemed pleasant enough when you came home."

"Before I was greeted with all the warmth of a wintry sea," Erik said tightly.

Christine pursed her lips. "I _thought_ you were going out for a minute or two to clear your head. I didn't expect you to be gone for an hour and a half, with no idea of where you might be. I was dreadfully worried."

"You hadn't any cause for concern, my dear," Erik said coolly. "You know perfectly well that I lived in the open air for nearly half my life. If there are any men who can best me while I am fully aware, I'd like to see them."

"I wouldn't," she muttered, the image blooming unbidden in her mind again of him being overpowered by police on the hunt, dozens of them, forcing him to the ground and binding his arms…Erik sitting in a dirty, dark cell awaiting his execution, cramped and stooped as he had been in the cage at the Paris fair.

She shivered. Her hand slipped around his arm, her other hand entwining with his chilly fingers. He looked down at her with a curious expression on his face, but a soft one.

"I couldn't bear it if you were caught," she said. "I don't think I should care very much what happened to me afterward at all, if you were to be captured and killed. I rather think my heart might stop, in that moment, if it ever came."

He looked pained for a moment, then with a suddenness that made her gasp, he lifted her up and sat her on the desk in front of him, leaning in to look her squarely in the eye. "I am not an idle fugitive, Christine," he said gently. "I have several plans in place should we find our situation…compromised."

Christine looked at him dubiously. "What if you should be waylaid quite unexpectedly by police on the road? What on earth kind of plan could you set into motion then?"

"Étienne knows what to do in that case," Erik said. "Trust your husband, would you? I have considered nearly every possibility."

"_Nearly_," Christine said, and his face darkened in a scowl. "Why do you make everything so damned difficult?" he said between his teeth.

She was keenly aware of how near they were to each other, and the rather delightful possibilities that could arise if he lifted her skirt at this very moment. His hand touched her knee for a moment, seemingly by accident, and her pulse quickened. She could feel the flush infusing her cheeks, the hot little pins-and-needles of breathless arousal.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, and she shrugged, but she made sure that her ankle nonchalantly brushed against his leg. She wasn't wearing any shoes, and her stocking rubbed against his trousers with a delightful little vibratory _swish_ of fabric on fabric. He swallowed, although his expression didn't change—did he think it had been involuntary, on her part? Better that he think it, at any rate; it made it ever so much more fun when she played the unassuming innocent. She could really work him into a fine frenzy that way; this was a sort of unspoken game between them on occasion, although there were a myriad of ways in which they took pleasure in each other lately—and this happened to be one of her favorites. He had his own little ways of tormenting her to the point of nearly begging, and she much enjoyed these lush moments of reciprocation, when the power was hers to wield instead of his.

The transition from timid bride to eager lover had been a gradual one, though all things considered it had happened surprisingly quickly—but at any rate, she thoroughly enjoyed being the new Christine; the old Christine would have thought screaming out in passion was entirely indecorous, and that only the most disreputable of women actually allowed themselves to lust after men with the intensity that she had begun to desire Erik. "Hot blood," Mamma Valerius would have called it in her more lucid years, though she had rarely spoken of such things even then.

_I like having hot blood, _Christine thought, feeling a shiver of pleasure as he pressed a little closer, his hips between her knees and almost touching her thighs, if it weren't for so many voluminous layers of clothing. _I like that he's awakened it in me, and that he's put the timid child in me to rest. I don't care if it's a sin to want this. I don't care. _

He had made her want this, made her ache for it in a mere matter of long, hazy days and weeks. His clumsy awkwardness had faded quickly in the face of experience gathered upon experience, and he now seemed to know with a startling precision and clarity what was required to tempt her, what sorts of touches and caresses made her breathless.

It was almost mathematical, at times, the way in which he attempted to seduce her—calculated and choreographed much as one might experiment with musical notes or the steps of a dance. He often seemed to lack a prodigious amount of spontaneity in the subject of love—it all seemed rather rehearsed at times, and she privately suspected he was as yet feeling fearful and untried, despite his façade of dominative confidence. One might take risks with music—it did not have feelings, or projected emotions or a voice beyond that which was given it by the musician, and Erik had had a lifetime to manipulate and bend music to his will. But a person, a lover, a spouse—that was a different matter, one which, according to his own intimations, he had never before had ample cause or circumstance to explore; she could often sense his nervousness beneath the calm exterior he liked to project.

He was a puzzle, Christine thought, and he was exasperatingly skilled at wearing masks that went far deeper than the skin and were not made of porcelain or silk—but she was very slowly learning how to read him, the language of his body and expressions and the way he poised his hands.

She knew that any sudden stiffness in his back and shoulders indicated uncertainty, sometimes indignation. She knew that when he clenched his hands and repeatedly opened and closed them into fists, it was best to leave him alone to avoid being the verbal brunt of his tempestuous moods—thus far, any altercations between them had been almost entirely verbal, never any sort of physical assault, but she had an inkling of what he was capable of in a particularly black frame of mind and preferred not to risk it.

She also knew the long, deep shiver in his spine meant desire—and that when he tilted his head slightly to the side while regarding her, it usually meant that he was taking the measure of her in a manner to which only a husband and lover was privy, seeing with his mind's eye beneath the layers of muslin and cotton and lace to naked skin.

Occasionally it merely meant that he was attempting to see with his mind's eye into the inner workings of her own brain, trying to discern her thoughts merely by looking at her, puzzling over her in his head (no doubt the way she often puzzled over him)—but he had not been fully able to crack that mystery yet, and she intended to keep it that way. She was becoming strangely skilled at wearing masks, too—not of the tangible sort, of course. Perhaps it was wicked of her to be filing away such involuntary lessons, but he was (however unwittingly) schooling her in the art of keeping one's emotions from inadvertently showing on the face, when such expressional outbursts were unwanted.

"You're trembling, Christine," he said, and she thought her mouth might have curved upward at the corners just a little, though she tried to keep her face entirely composed. "Am I?" she asked calmly, and then purposefully injected a slightly breathy note into her voice. "Perhaps you had better feel my pulse to see if I'm well. You know more about these things than I do." She looked at him through her eyelashes, and he regarded her with his hooded stare, his eyes like glittering embers.

"Perhaps," he said, and lightly pressed the pads of his fingers to the side of her neck. "Your pulse is racing, beautiful one," he said in a way that made her feel warm and weak. "Perhaps you ought to lie down."

She felt a little bolt of excitement in her stomach, but said, quite calmly, "Oh, no…I prefer to sit, thank you." She slightly adjusted her left knee so that it briefly rubbed ever-so-lightly against the bulge between his legs, still feigning a kind of blissful ignorance. He wasn't fooled—he no doubt knew she did it on purpose, but she could sense that he was enjoying the game of her nonchalance. He leaned forward a bit, and she involuntarily squeaked as he pinched her thigh. "How clumsy of me," he said, and she could feel his smug, soft-spoken dangerousness, his sly subtlety as he attempted to win back control over the tryst.

Suddenly it didn't matter who was winning the upper hand; her senses were tilting, careening, and all that mattered was the feeling of his warm, twisted lips upon her own as her fingers slid beneath the mask and it clattered to the floor. "Christine," he mumbled between her lips, and his hand slipped under her skirt, sliding up her stockinged thigh. The pressure of his hand as it slid over her flesh was not very gentle, as it might have been had he been attempting to win her over more sweetly; it was firm, demanding. There was nothing remotely mathematical about him now; he was raw and beautifully unleashed, and she found herself responding breathlessly to his unapologetic plunder of her as he tore her stockings from her legs and, with a kind of violent abandon, yanked at the closure of her combinations and sent pearlescent buttons scattering to the floor. She gasped a little and her fingers clutched at the back of his neck.

"Tell me you want me," he growled in her ear, and a bolt of pleasure shot through her like lightning. His long, calloused fingers teased and tormented her, making her wriggle and writhe and arch. "_Erik,_" she breathed, a moan of air passing through her lips. "Tell me," he said again, sounding delighted. Then, more forcefully, seductively, "_Tell me._"

"I want you!" she gasped, almost cried out. Her fingers dug into his shoulders—_why_ was he still wearing his coat?—and she pressed herself against him, her mouth making small wet trails on his neck and wonderfully stubbled throat. One of her hands fluttered down to the straining, pulsing hardness in his trousers, and his body gave a little twitch. She laughed a little in her throat. "_Rather astonishingly susceptible to the touch of a hand,_" she murmured in his ear, and he shivered violently against her, grabbing her thighs and pushing them apart.

She swiftly unbuttoned his trousers, sliding her hands inside, and he bucked sharply for an instant, a long, deep breath being inhaled through his nostrils and between his teeth. His eyes were closed, but they opened again and regarded her with a rapacious longing as she freed him from his confines.

His eyelids fluttered, and a groan as beautiful as any song made its way from his vocal cords to his mouth as she cupped him in her hands and slid her palms over the taut, throbbing length. He shivered again and brought her hands to his face instead, peppering her wrists and fingers with kisses.

Her mouth hovered close to his disfigured cheek as she leaned in, and she suddenly let her tongue dart out, trailing swiftly and lightly for just an instant along the ravaged lines of mottled, mangled skin.

He gave a strangled gasp and gripped her thighs, shoving himself inside her. Christine's head snapped back, mouth open in wordless pleasure as he grabbed her bottom and pulled her forward for leverage on the precarious desk. The world seemed to spiral out of control and she felt dizzy, ecstatic. He drove sounds out of her lips with every thrust, culminating in his name and a nearly breathless scream from her throat as release swept through her body like a silken hurricane, merciless pleasure that left her body slack and her skin tingling and aching.

He hadn't finished yet, to her delight. Her thighs tightened around him, and he bent his head to nip at her neck with his teeth. "Little wanton," he growled breathlessly, "_who do you belong to?_" She suddenly experienced a quick, frenzied buildup of sensation as he worked her, and then those wild, golden waves of ecstasy washed over her again. "_You!_" she gasped, almost screamed. "Only you—" She was suddenly caught with a wicked little thought. "Erik," she whispered in his ear, "who do _you _belong to?"

He shuddered. "_You,_" he said fervently, a sob of breath panting in his throat. "Christine—"

"_Say it,_" she gasped, and he grabbed wildly at her hips as though he would never let go. "_I belong to you!"_ he cried out. "I'm yours—and you—are mine—"

She was breathless and hot, her cheeks flushed and her body unbearably yet wonderfully warm. He slipped over the edge then, a sound tearing from between his lips that was something between a groan and a shout, lovely and wild, almost sending her into paroxysms of paradise yet again.

She had never thought it possible, had never imagined it might happen to her more than once in a single tryst. If it _was _a sin to want such tangled bliss, then she was determined, for that single moment, to go merrily to Hell.

He was a little slumped over her, though he had not yet moved to disengage himself from her body. His hands moved over her like a prayer, slowly now, with the relaxed, sleepy aftermath of coitus. Her mouth was pressed to his neck, the taste of him on her tongue in the thin sheen of sweat cooling on his skin.

She wanted him fully unclothed, and herself, so that she could revel in their tangled bodies, feel his skin against her own. But that was for bedroom trysts, when their legs were tangled in sheets and bedclothes as well as in each other, and he finally—a bit reluctantly, it seemed—slid himself away, out of her. He had the courtesy to lift her up off the desk, rather than allowing her to disembark from it herself, and she clung to him like a child, unwilling to let this overwhelming intimacy slip away from them like an errant breeze. So quickly it could dissipate, this glowing feeling of being one, and she wanted it to linger, wanted to hold it like sifting sand in her fingers.

"Beautiful Christine," he sighed, carefully sitting on one corner of the divan and stretching out his long legs. She was still curled around him, plucking absently at the collar of his shirt. "Beautiful Erik," she said, and he turned his face away, not looking at her. She could feel embarrassment mingled with disbelief radiating from him in waves, could see it in the light flush of his pale cheek, lined with the years though unmarred by the disfigurement of its fellow.

She didn't press the issue, knowing it would be futile, and they reclined in silence for several minutes, the only sound that of their mingled breathing.

"I love you," she said gently, after what seemed a very long time.

He finally turned his head to look at her, his eyes soft and full of some unspoken pain. "And I love you."

She traced the strange, misshapen line of his mouth with one finger. "I suppose we forgive each other, then," she said, "for whatever offense caused us not to speak for three days."

He laughed, then, and she felt a little thrill of joy to hear that golden, rippling sound—not at all like his dry chuckle or cold, mirthless laugh. This was genuine, and she thought perhaps it was the loveliest sound she had ever heard him make.

"Shall we sing?" she asked suddenly. "We haven't sung in such a long time."

"Yes," he said musingly, "yes…we really must sing, mustn't we? Though if you'll forgive me, my dear, I require a few minutes, at least, to rest myself…intimacy is curiously fatiguing, you know, and I am not nearly as young as you—I fear I am quite out of breath, which of course does not lend itself at all well to musical pursuits…"

Christine put her finger to his lips to shush him. "It's all right," she said. "We can sit." Quickly, she added, "I don't much feel like singing at the moment, at any rate…I'm quite tired, myself." She wasn't, not really, but she didn't wish to unnecessarily wound his pride by appearing to cater to his age; far better he thought she wanted to sit just as much as he did.

He might not have been fooled by this—she wasn't sure—but he said nothing, merely fingering her hair as he reclined, his other hand dangling near her bare feet, which were hanging over his legs as she was practically in his lap. He passed his cool hand over her exposed ankles momentarily, lightly as a summer breeze, and it gave her a little shiver of pleasure as she wrapped her arms around him, languid and relaxed.

Everything seemed, for the moment, to be very wonderfully peaceful and ordinary.


	10. Chapter IX: Floating

**A/N: Another ridiculously long wait between updates, I know. Life, glorious life, got in the way as always. But I'm a little more comfortable with things now, and ergo I've settled back into fitting writing into my busy life too. **

**First off, I've revised the chapter titles just a little bit; after the prologue, every chapter has a Roman numeral preceding the actual title. And I know it can be annoying when chapter numbers in the titles don't match their respective installment numbers (i.e. Prologue is technically Chapter 1, Chapter I: Descent is actually Chapter 2, etc), but I feel like it looks a little more polished this way. I'm going to be going back and slightly revising the writing style in a couple of the earlier chapters, too, when I have time - but for now, my main priority is updating.  
**

**This chapter took a long time evolving – as has happened so much lately with the last few chapters, I must have written at least ten different drafts, all with different plots, but I finally succumbed to writing and polishing what became this chapter—from Erik's perspective, no less (incidentally something that I had been particularly and completely determined, for creative self-challenge reasons, NOT to do in this fic, EVER—blame that determination on the hindsight of way too much highly indulgent Erik-POV in my older, Lerouxish fic, **_**The Opera Wench)**_**. I was pretty inexperienced at the time I started writing that fic, and I think a lot of my _Opera Wench _Erik's inner thoughts made him sound a bit like a whiny teenage girl. Granted, it's been over six years since the early days of _TOW_, and I think I've gotten far better at writing certain male perspectives in the meantime, but the experience of going back and re-reading some of the ridiculous things I wrote spooked me nonetheless - which is why, up to this point, I've tried to only ever show _Shadows _Erik through the eyes of others, particularly Christine. And that was particularly because I never truly intended for you guys to be entirely on his side at any given time; I really wanted that dark ambiguity there, that uncertainty and doubt that Christine is almost constantly feeling where he's concerned.  
**

**As with the chapter from Raoul's POV and the excerpt from Étienne's POV, however, I'm glad I fought my preconceived plans and followed my instincts instead. I'll admit something; I did initially plan for the Erik in this story to not be entirely sympathetic, but in spite of my best intentions, the old devil has grown on me quite a bit. (He has a way of doing that.) But while this is quite a sympathetic chapter, there will be plenty of dark ambiguity coming up soon on his end which I intend to fully explore from one POV or another. At the moment, I hope you don't mind yet another (ahem) titillating E/C interlude (I know some of you won't mind one bit, but I'm not sure about everyone—I don't know how many people want me to get going with the plot already). :D Next chapter really is going to be much more sensible and plot-driven—i.e., we're going to be getting back to Raoul and his search, among other things. I can't promise a speedy update, exactly, but I don't think I'm remiss when I say that you'll likely be seeing the next chapter **_**fairly**_** soon – half of it I'm very, very happy with, and the other half…still working out the bugs. Hopefully it won't take too long to get the next chapter up to my usual standards!**

**I liked this particular chapter a lot when I first wrote it - I really liked showing Erik's tender, sensual side in full, unfettered detail for once rather than zeroing in on his temper or his flaws - but I shelved it temporarily in favor of more (for lack of a better phrase) plotty plots like the one I just described, the one coming up next chapter and beyond. But eventually I came back to this one, and I liked it better than whatever else I was working on at the time. You dears have been so very patient with me of late, and I thought you definitely deserved a reward while I keep working out the kinks in the next chapter's plotline. Plus, what with the upcoming storyline that's in the works, I realized that there probably wouldn't be a much better opportunity than now to use this particular piece of sexy fluff. Enjoy! **

* * *

There had often been little snatches of half-formed fantasies in the old life, shadowy and brief because he lacked the reference to give them vivid shape (the image of what her legs might look like, for example, stripped of their lace and muslin accoutrements, or how it might feel to have his mouth pressed to the little hollow of her throat). There were things now—real things—in the new life, that put his former imaginings to shame—the soft, springy roundness of her breasts, the weight of them cupped in his hands or the pert squashiness of them pressed against his skin; her finger-nails dragging lightly along his back while high-pitched little breaths and gasps—and _moans—_wound their way out of her throat; her thighs tightening around his hips, the arch of her lovely neck; her silken palms sliding along his—

Damn it all.

He couldn't concentrate on his work, not a bit. There she sat in the grass just outside the window, oblivious, perhaps, to his ardent imaginings, a book in her hands and her bare toes peeking tantalizingly from beneath the hem of her dress. She was no more than twenty feet from the house, where he was sitting mindlessly at his desk in the study. He was supposed to be drawing up some plans for a new house that Étienne was likely going to be working on, for clients of a middle-class family in town. They had come to a bit of a grudging understanding of late, he and Étienne—his half-brother had recently recommended him to half-a-dozen clients in the surrounding countryside who wanted architectural designs, and Christine had been overjoyed at Erik's finally finding an occupation in Culot that suited him.

But he couldn't draw a single line at the moment; he was too caught up in the loose spill of Christine's dark curls, which he always wanted to gather up in his hands, and the gleam of her white teeth as they touched her lower lip, biting it gently as she was often apt to do when she was nervous or intent. (He had noticed this frequently during lessons, in the old days, and it had made him want to catch it between his own teeth.)

The pen slid from his fingers, falling on his desk with a little spatter of ink.

She looked up from her book, and their eyes met. He felt a spreading warmth in his belly and groin, a fierce, throbbing tightness, and he did not bother to conceal the desire which was no doubt quite evident in his expression.

Ah, good girl—so good—she put down her book, slowly, torturously, and made as if she were about to rise. At the last moment, however, she sat back and began nonchalantly brushing bits of grass off the hem of her dress, and his fingers tightened on the edge of his desk. What was she playing at? She rose then, and bent over for her book—she was taking a devilishly long time, and the muscles in his arm gave a little spasm; his breath was quick and his lips felt terribly dry. She straightened, sliding her hand across her neck and shoulder to sweep the long cascade of hair behind her back—his fingers dug into the arm of his chair, and the sweetness of this torture could not possibly be denied. Then—dear God, then—she developed a peculiar expression on her face, and bent down again, her fingers plucking up the edge of her skirt and sliding it up until at last she reached her calf, her _bare_ calf, for God's sake, innocently scratching the outside of it as though she had a mildly annoying itch. She paused—looked at him, at first in mock surprise, as if to say _Oh, I hadn't any idea you were watching_, and then a soft, secret little smile played upon her lips—and he thought that he would die, right here at the window-sill, seized by the exquisite rush of blood pounding through his body and carried away upon it like Elijah in his burning chariot.

He knew that when she deigned to come inside to join him—or he left the house to join her, whichever happened to occur first—he would not be able to keep his hands from her, all over her, her legs and breasts and hips and buttocks, would not be able to keep from saying her name against her throat, to keep his mouth from exploring her lips and chest and her dark, wet warmth.

Somehow his legs had carried him from the dark mahogany and oak of his study to the front door in the main hall; he opened it, his fingers feeling clumsy and half-aware. A blast of sunlight greeted him; he was walking much faster than his normal gait, almost running, though he was almost never inclined to run. He slowed as he rounded the corner of the house, putting his hand on the warm wood and stone to steady himself. He cleared his throat.

"Your book," he said, his head swimming a little, "It pleases you?"

She was sitting again—she must have noticed that he was coming to her, instead of the other way round. She looked up languidly, lazily stretching her leg out from beneath her dress in such a way that made it look as though she had no idea she was exposing foot, ankle and half a shin. He tore his eyes away from that part of her anatomy, determined now to gain the upper hand in this savagely beautiful little game.

"Not really," she said, sounding quite honest and not at all coy. "I don't mean to sound snobbish, but it rather bores me, actually. I shouldn't have been fooled by the elegant cover, but—" Her eyes suddenly flickered down to his trousers—his ardency was, one might say, rather obvious—and her nostrils flared ever so slightly, her lips parting almost imperceptibly. That secret smile was hovering on her mouth, and he wanted to devour it, hoard it, but he forced himself to wait. He licked his dry lips involuntarily and minorly adjusted his stance, remembering a darling remark she had made a week ago about him cutting a particularly fine figure in a certain unconscious habitual attitude of his—leaning against the wall, arms folded, one leg rakishly bent, ankles crossed. Vanity was perhaps moot in his position, but he had so little to be vain about that he rather relished such unexpected little victories.

"Have you done with your work?" Christine asked calmly, looking at him through her eyelashes.

He kept the cool, unruffled veneer, and brushed a stray leaf from his shoulder. "It can wait." _It can go to the devil _was what he actually thought, but he thought it amusing to draw out this masochistic little tête-à-tête while longer by appearing somewhat aloof. She had seen the physical evidence bulging between his legs, at any rate, so she could hardly have been entirely fooled by his calm demeanor.

"Oh, dear," she said in mock surprise, pretending to only just notice her conspicuously exposed leg. It slid back beneath the confines of her skirt, and he swallowed hard.

"I had forgotten," he said coolly (although there was a slight quaver in his voice, which he silently cursed), "that it was wash-day. All your stockings must be hanging out to dry."

"Yes," she said smoothly, turning a page in her book. "My corset, too."

Erik tugged a little at his collar. A drop of sweat rolled down his neck.

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, still not looking at him, but rather at her book. "I suppose it's rather indecorous for me to mention _that_."

It was nearly impossible to tell, when she said this, whether she was being serious or whether it was part of her titillating façade of nonchalance. His prim little protégée, his shrinking little violet, had blossomed into a deeply sensuous lily in the space of two short months, although she still had moments which echoed her former self, moments which were oddly endearing even amidst their initial annoyance.

She bit her lip again, and a little shiver went through him. "Christine," he said softly, dangerously, feeling like a predator watching his prey. Her eyes slid up to meet his over the cover of her book. The ghost of that smile was still playing upon her lips, inviting him closer. Soon he was close enough to smell her, and he bent on his knees with his hands on either side of her in the grass.

"We aren't in view of the road," she said, a little breathlessly, and there was a little leap of pleasure inside him. "No," he said, letting the desire take over his voice, thick and raspy, "no, we aren't." His fingers fumbled with the buttons on the front of her dress, forcing it open so he could bury his face between the exposed mounds of flesh. He shoved up her skirt, fondling her bare legs and finding his way through her combinations to the slick, soft secret of her womanhood. She wriggled against his hand, her breathing high and sweet.

Buttons, _buttons…_women, it seemed, had an infernal lot of buttons barring anyone from intruding upon their privacy and virtue, and it was no wonder, too, because they were a damned nuisance—buttons, at least, although women certainly had their moments, too, not that he'd had much experience with even passing conversations with many women, and Christine was the only one who had ever deigned to bestow any favors upon him; that was just as well, at any rate, for she might as well have been the only woman in the world as far as he was concerned. Other women sparked not even a passing interest now; they were like cheap plaster casts of the Pietà.

Despite the fact that his hands had found their way up between her legs quite nicely, he still had to pull them out for a moment to open the cloth contraption up in the front to give another part of him entrance. Christine didn't wear separate pieces for her combinations; she wore singlets, one piece for body and legs, and he reminded himself to take her shopping somewhere for more…easily accessible undergarments. Something he could pull down, rather than unbutton—something that would make spontaneous afternoon trysts much less of a chore at the start of them. (He had perused plenty of catalogs for women's clothing when he had been in that foolhardy, dreamlike state two years ago at the very beginning of his infatuation, before she even knew he was alive, trying to acquaint himself with female fashions so that he could fill his intended's closet with clothes—and although he hadn't been bothered at the time to actually _buy _any feminine undergarments, he had seen his share of pictures.)

Her fingers fumbled at his collar and tie, and her breath whispered against the skin of his neck. She was so warm, so near. Her lips met his, and he needed no god at all when he had her to worship. "My good angel, my goddess," he murmured, and there was a rippling hum in her throat, a giggling little thrum of pleasure. She was so young, so impulsive —though at one-and-twenty (and in her lately evolved manner), she was far more woman than girl. He was impulsive, too, though, and he hadn't nearly the excuse of not having lived enough years to learn how to reign it in, how to keep it back. He rather liked having _something_ very much in common with her at least, this mad, heady recklessness they both shared (although he suspected he possessed it in far more copious amounts—his flower was a cautious sort, and it had taken her weeks, months, to be so wanton with him). Desire, too, that was common ground, though he was damned if he knew why _he_ had been able to awaken it in her to such an alarming (and delightful) degree—

He was inside her now, buried to the hilt in her warmth. She was so welcoming, the way her body curved along with his, the steady rhythm of oneness, of being so undeniably _alive _that it was difficult to imagine how he had ever fancied himself dead. He felt consumed, felt himself being driven to a kind of blissful, otherworldly madness as he enveloped that insistent part of him again and again within her slick velvet walls. He ached for her so badly that satiation seemed to be approaching all too quickly, and he tried to slow and temper his movements even though every fiber of his body cried out for hard, swift frenzy. Her breath at his ear, her soft lips nipping at his throat—_Christine, Christine,_ he murmured, a prayer to the one he worshiped, and she gave him a long, breathless kiss. It drove him wonderfully wild to see that bright, high flush on her cheeks, like swipes of paint. It was not the blush of embarrassment, but of ecstasy, and he watched in wonder as it spread to her neck and chest, to the tops of her breasts and down almost to her navel. It never ceased to amaze him, this reaction he had caused in her—he had not had much opportunity to see it in full light, though she had allowed more and more trysts without total darkness of late.

She tightened around him, her eyes fluttering almost shut. Her delightful little cries sounded in his ear, intoxicating him, and his name, his _name—_over and over again, in that voice which had sung his arias and wound about his own in duets, that same sweet, seraphic timbre which he had been captivated by at the very first, though God only knew that he had never been acquainted with _this_ particular expression of her vocal cords until relatively recently.

Release followed swiftly on the heels of her breathless screams, as though all the life was pouring out of him in one burst of white-hot warmth, and then another. His breath hitched, caught heavily in his throat as the primitive throes of his body shook him. He shuddered with it, felt himself pulled out with the tide, feeling the familiar giddy, overpowering relaxation come upon him like the spell of a beneficent fairy.

They lay in a tangled heap on the grass for a while after that, entwined like ivy on a wall, the sun beating down on his naked face. His mask lay discarded to the side of them, like a cheap toy. They hadn't bothered to button up their clothes which still hung on their bodies, rumpled and half-open. She whispered things to him, things that made his heart seize with pleasure, sweet nothings that he never would have dreamed of falling from her lips so many months ago. He had resigned himself so completely to never encountering this sort of quiet bliss that it was still a shock at times, albeit a thoroughly pleasant one. He put the backs of his fingers against the smooth skin of her cheek and could not stop himself from covering her face in soft, slow kisses, murmuring his own brand of worshipful endearments. She shivered, and he asked, "Are you cold?" "No," she whispered, sliding her fingertips over his throat, and then he shivered, too, so he was forced to assume that hers had been out of a similar pleasure.

"Christine," he whispered, "Christine, do I make you quite happy?" She smiled, although the smile seemed to falter just a little—only a little, but enough to make his stomach briefly churn. "Of course," she said, her voice warm and soft, and he supposed that would have to be enough for him.


End file.
